Judging from Kimimaro's earlier ingenuity, his unique bloodline and self-crafted techniques, and adjustnts, the strength, techniques, and potential of his teammates, his composure, intellect, and evident scientific inclination, Orochimaru could already tell that whatever the boy was about to propose would be genuinely valuable, even to the current him right now.
Not as valuable as the prize he would have gained had he successfully overpowered and captured them earlier, of course.
Nothing could match that.
But still, sothing significant.
Sothing important to him now.
Better sothing than nothing, especially in this mont and at this crossroad for him.
And the more Orochimaru thought about it, the more hope he found himself placing in whatever proposal Kimimaro was preparing.
Perhaps it could open new horizons… ones he had been searching for a long ti.
He needed them.
After all, he had failed today.
And failure ant adjusting the long-term plan.
He still intended to pursue Sasuke, his most viable, powerful potential vessel, the likes of which he had never possessed before, two years from now, when his current body deteriorated and reached its three-year replacent limit.
That would align perfectly with his planned strike on Konoha and his aim to eliminate Hiruzen.
Hence, anything that could help him achieve either of those goals, with even higher probability of success, was extrely valuable right now.
And that made Kimimaro's forthcoming offer all the more intriguing.
As for him supposedly having nothing to offer in return, please. That was impossible.
Orochimaru possessed a breadth of valuable resources, knowledge, and assets that few in the world could rival.
And Kimimaro was the one who suggested a trade in the first place.
Which ant he already knew what he was seeking.
He wasn't guessing.
In fact, Orochimaru now realized the boy seed to understand him better than most ordinary figures in the underworld ever had after his defection, for so reason.
So the real question beca simple.
Would Kimimaro propose sothing equal in value to the things he could provide?
anwhile, Kimimaro was finally ready to voice the real deal.
He didn't look down on those rare scientific instrunts—far from it.
In a world as scientifically and technologically backward as this one, tools of that precision were priceless.
Nor did he underestimate Orochimaru's decades of accumulated research.
The man was, without question, the most advanced scientific mind and genius this world had ever produced.
After all, in his past life's fandom debates, the only person ever argued to match or surpass him was his own student, Kabuto.
So Kimimaro understood the value of what he'd already asked for.
He simply wasn't foolish enough to treat them as trivial.
But the truth was…
The real request he was about to make eclipsed even those two by a wide margin.
And he felt equally confident in the two things he intended to offer Orochimaru in exchange.
In fact, given Orochimaru's current situation, his losses, his future plans, and his imdiate needs, Kimimaro was almost certain that what he had prepared would be of equal, if not superior, value in Orochimaru's eyes.
Negotiation always depended on timing and circumstance.
Kimimaro knew that better than most.
And right now, the circumstances were perfect for both of them.
He finally exhaled, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he spoke.
"Then here is my real request, Orochimaru."
The battlefield quieted even further.
Even the girls stiffened slightly.
Kimimaro continued, tone even, almost casual.
"I want a small amount of Hashirama Senju tissue. Whatever form you have it stored in. A vial, a suspended fragnt, a stabilized cell mass… whatever remains."
Orochimaru froze.
Not wide-eyed, not dramatically shocked, just a stillness so sharp it cut the air around him.
A predator caught off guard.
Hashirama samples.
No one outside Konoha's innermost shadows even knew those existed, especially at his hands and still.
No one, except perhaps the four highest council mbers, and even they possibly knew only of Danzo's portion, not Orochimaru's.
After all, the village elders had likely assud that since Orochimaru couldn't make the research bear fruit back then, in his own words, he would simply discard the remaining material eventually in all those years.
But they were fools if they truly believed that.
Why would he, of all people, ever throw away sothing that generally interesting and potentially valuable eventually, at least in so form?
And realistically, how could the chief experintal officer of Root, at that ti, personally leading this research, not secure a private portion for himself, even under their tight oversight from both Danzo and Hiruzen?
They controlled his research, yes…
But he controlled what he chose to keep.
He had also built his own faction within Root during that period, quietly poaching operatives from under Danzō's nose, which helped him.
A private, covert network, loyal to him alone, that he would later bring and use even long after his subsequent defection as building blocks.
Orochimaru's expression barely shifted, but internally, his mind whipped through possibilities.
Impossible.
This happened probably before the boy was even born.
Back when he worked in Root under Hiruzen's orders, pretending to be Danzo's most important subordinate while using both their logistics and resources for his own purposes.
Danzō had believed Orochimaru was his man, his future Hokage "puppet," especially important as Hiruzen's popularity declined during the Third Shinobi World War. Otherwise, he wouldn't have pushed Orochimaru so hard then, certain the position was within reach.
What he didn't anticipate was the cot-like rise of Minato, Hiruzen's own chosen "puppet", whose sudden surge in fa and public favor completely eclipsed Orochimaru himself.
However, that was a story for another ti.
anwhile, Hiruzen believed Orochimaru was logically his man, his forr student, placed within the Root's darkness, specifically to keep Danzō's growing ambitions in check from the inside, the entire ti he was there, especially important during the Third Shinobi World War.
Neither had been correct.
He used both of them, Danzo's logistics and Hiruzen's semi-official funding, to pursue the most important research of his ti, whilst still in the village.
The study of Hashirama Senju's cells.
So how…?
How could a Kaguya boy, probably born after that era, know of this?
Orochimaru's mind flicked through hypotheses.
An informant in Konoha's higher ranks? Impossible.
A collaborator feeding him intelligence? But why him?
A connection to Root? Absurd. Why would he need for it then?
So secret faction?
Or… sothing else entirely?
He kept all of this turmoil internal.
Externally, Orochimaru maintained a perfect, unreadable neutrality.
He neither confird nor denied the existence of such cells nor whether they were at his disposal.
Kimimaro watched him with calm confidence.
Orochimaru's voice finally ca, a soft rasp.
"…You make quite an assumption."
Kimimaro shrugged mildly.
"I make accurate ones."
Orochimaru's eyes narrowed, sowhere between irritation and genuine fascination.
The boy wasn't bluffing.
He knew.
And more importantly, he wasn't asking for sothing impossible.
Just a small amount.
A sliver.
Barely enough for large-scale experintation.
But enough for his purposes, for so reason.
And Orochimaru did, in fact, still possess a limited quantity, secretly stored, forgotten by the world.
He wondered again, How does he know?
But outwardly, Orochimaru only let out a slow, empty breath.
"And what," he murmured, "makes you so certain that I have anything like that in my possession?"
Kimimaro didn't even blink.
"Because you never leave behind anything potentially useful. Even if the world believes a project is abandoned… You don't discard power. Ever."
Orochimaru almost smiled at that.
Almost.
Still neutral, still unreadable, he replied:
"…You are bold, Kimimaro. And unsettlingly perceptive."
A pause.
Calculation.
And then—
"But very well. If the exchange you offer is worth my ti, and if your side holds up its end… then we can discuss the possibility of providing such a sample."
He leaned forward just slightly, eyes gleaming with cold curiosity.
"Now," Orochimaru whispered, "show what you intend to give in return. You've raised my expectations… do not disappoint ."
His voice had changed, lighter, intrigued, his pride cooled into intellectual hunger.
And Kimimaro knew:
He had him exactly where he needed him.
Small samples?
No problem.
Their cellular multiplication vector was already sothing he could eventually work with.
Implanting them into himself, any ti soon?
He wasn't an idiot.
One only needed to look at how cautious Orochimaru was with them.
A man obsessed with obtaining a body that could one day withstand the White Snake Sage's power… yet he never injected Hashirama cells into his own vessel.
He just kept hopping from corpse to corpse instead.
That alone showed how dangerous they were.
Kimimaro had also seen what kind of abomination Danzō beca after splicing them in; the man had practically turned into a tree wearing human skin in the end.
No.
Kimimaro had no intention of repeating that mistake.
The only real advantage was that the cells could better fuel Danzo's stolen Kotoamatsukami and keep his Sharingan stock running for Izanagi in real ti.
That alone made it a major power-up for the aging Danzō, who was honestly never anything spectacular as a shinobi, and the only truly positive part of the whole experint for him.
His gaze shifted instead, subtly, toward Akane, toward the faint trickles of blood beneath her eyes, already forming from the strain of her just awakened Mangekyō.
What would happen if this continued for too long in the future?
It was for her, primarily.
She needed enough 'Yang' to counterbalance the massive excess of 'Yin' in her being that her new eyes had awakened.
Physical balancing the spiritual side of the equation.
Without it, the imbalance would eventually destroy her.
Not just blindness, not just the "loss of light", but death.
After all… wasn't that precisely what happened to Itachi?
And Kimimaro didn't even need to look that far, and others.
He rembered the original version of himself.
He knew better than anyone what happened when dormant Ōtsutsuki potential was pushed too far inside a body still bound by mortal limitations.
Akane would not et that fate.
Not under him.
He would absolutely find a way to make her body accept the cells safely.
At least to the degree necessary to completely cancel the corrosive effects of her Mangekyō, just like what had happened automatically with Obito.
He needed to do it in ti, before her eyes or her body suffered irreversible damage.
She needed the stabilizing Yang most urgently… and for her, even a calculated tradeoff made sense.
After all, she didn't even need to use their power directly ever, but only use it as a passive stabilizer.
Not to ntion that even controlled and isolated instability was still infinitely better than lethal corrosion.
As for his own use?
He wasn't sure for now.
He would not inject them recklessly.
Only if their future research reached a truly satisfactory threshold.
Kimimaro knew that such stability might require years of cellular study, refinent, and technique developnt… and sothing more.
Hashirama cells alone were not enough.
Obito hadn't survived and evolved because of Hashirama cells; he did so because those cells ca through the White Zetsu matrix.
The sa underlying matrix born from that strange interplay of Madara Uchiha's work, his own essence rged with stolen Hashirama cells and fed into the Gedo Husk, which itself had once been a God Tree, and which was later used as the vessel that reshaped Obito.
Because the so-called White Zetsu were not creatures Madara had simply engineered out of nothing on a whim.
They were ancient humans, long-trapped Infinite Tsukuyomi victims of Kaguya, their bodies steeped in and sponging the God Tree's influence for centuries until they had effectively beco extensions of it.
So when Madara later enhanced them with Hashirama's cells, without truly understanding what they were, he created beings that were, in essence, miniature offshoots of the God Tree fused with Senju tissue.
It had been Black Zetsu orchestrating the entire chain of events with its hidden machinations, a reminder of just how thoroughly everyone had underestimated it.
That was why Obito's fusion was so perfect.
This was why even Orochimaru's most unique, genetically mutated subject, Shin, who could supposedly accept any tissue without rejection, still wasn't enough to give him the confidence to start implanting his parts into himself the way he had handed Danzō that arm. It made one thing obvious.
Maybe only White Zetsu-type matter, soaked in God Tree residue for centuries, could host Hashirama cells safely and consistently enough for real use.
And why Danzō himself had beco such a grotesque failure in that experint… and why nearly every other ordinary test subject in Konoha, those dozens of children, besides Yamato, had t even worse fates.
Why Obito and even so White Zetsus possessed far more stable, functional, imperfect Wood Release than Danzō ever did, despite all of Danzō's and Orochimaru's extensive, Konoha-sanctioned research likely spanning many years.
The White Zetsu weren't rely "connected" to the God Tree.
Over centuries of being trapped within its influence, they had beco sothing closer to its offshoots, distant branches shaped in human form.
And the God Tree's essence… was no trivial thing.
It was one of the singular, foundational anomalies of the shinobi world, a source unlike any other.
Which is precisely why Kimimaro could ideally not wait enough to get his hands on it in the near future as well.
And if that was all true… then maybe Hashirama's own monstrous abilities ca from a similar lineage.
After all, Hashirama had always been too abnormal, even for an Ashura reincarnate.
That unique, unidentified, yet perfectly balanced and very powerful Sage Mode.
That innate, instinctive, automatic healing without any technique behind it.
That Wood Release, a fusion of earth, water, and yang that wasn't rely overwhelming physically, but carried a strange, unnatural ability to suppress chakra itself… even chakra on the level of tailed beasts.
Ordinary wood should never have been capable of that.
Nothing in elental theory accounted for it.
And above all, why had literally no other Senju, not a single one of Hashirama's closest blood relatives, not anyone even vaguely near his genetic proximity, ever manifested anything remotely similar?
Let alone sothing so impossibly beyond the norm?
Why had Hashirama always overwheld Madara, who was supposed to be his symbolic equal?
Even when Madara wielded the Nine-Tails against him in their final battle?
Madara only survived by faking his own death and fleeing with a stolen sample of Hashirama's flesh.
But the fact remained:
On the record, and in every real asure that mattered, he was defeated.
So Kimimaro increasingly suspected the truth:
Hashirama Senju might well have been a kind of God Tree–derived atavism, a genetic throwback carrying far more of that primordial power than even he ever understood.
His potential arrived in the world alongside Ashura's soul, the first such great mutation born from Hagoromo's bloodline.
The reason Madara's Wood Release stood at the very top of the hierarchy of Hashirama-cell users, surpassing even Obito and the strongest White Zetsu clones, could also be explained by this line of logic.
Madara had been grievously wounded in that final battle, and in that exact mont of near-death, he had introduced into himself the largest possible dose of Hashirama's direct, still-living essence.
It wasn't just cells.
It was fresh, pulsing vitality at its peak.
That was why Madara gained the most of Hashirama's powers from the fusion.
Why his Wood Release was unmatched, barring anyone besides Hashirama himself.
But all of that was a mystery for another day.
Right now, only one thing mattered.
He would not let Akane suffer the sa fate as Itachi…
Or the original Kimimaro.
And honestly, it mattered just as much to him as it did to Akane.
He already carried the Hamura side of the Sage Body through his own lineage.
Now imagine adding Hashirama's cells on top of that, cells infused not only with the strongest inheritor of Hagoromo's Sage Body, Ashura-Hashirama, but potentially combining that with the God Tree's direct offshoot essence, once he secured a powerful White Zetsu sample in the future.
Even Kimimaro struggled to fully contain the quiet surge of excitent that rose in him at the thought.
So he drew a slow breath, steadied himself, and finally prepared to lay his cards on the table for Orochimaru's trade completely.
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