Oops, I’m Kimimaro? Guess I’ll Be the Final Villain! Chapter 89 89: The Exchange That Makes Snakes Salivate

Kimimaro exhaled, just softly, reassuring warmth threading into his ntal voice as he answered.

"Relax. I didn't forget. I never intended to. I simply couldn't ask for Edo Tensei now without giving him too much leverage."

He let a faint pulse of sincerity slip through the link, sothing only Ashina would notice.

"And besides… It's pointless. Since I already hold the foundations of sothing far superior to Edo Tensei in terms of overall soul mastery. That is what I'm literally trading with him now."

"Sothing ant for you alone, sothing I've worked on in secret for years. I will keep that promise. Just not in this mont."

"Once he leaves, I'll give you a copy of the research he's reading now, and you'll see for yourself how completely it eclipses Edo Tensei for your purpose. His own vessel-hopping depends on it too. That's why he reacted with such surprise and secret delight... Your purposes overlap greatly after all. And if, sohow, you're still not satisfied with that, afterward, then I'll simply make him include Edo Tensei in the trade as well later, before it finalizes completely. Even if I have to give up so of the instrunts or his scientific notes as part of his 'apology,' I'll force that outco."

At this point, Kimimaro understood perfectly: the greatest obstacle between them and reviving Ashina had always been the sa.

Finding a vessel strong enough to hold Ashina's soul without cracking apart under the pressure. No human body alive could withstand that kind of spiritual mass, not for long, not without deforming or outright collapsing.

Which was why, from the very beginning, Kimimaro had planned to acquire one of the pri White Zetsu bodies "for the job" eventually.

Preferably, the strongest specin out of them he could find.

And now that plan aligned seamlessly with what he was about to gain from Orochimaru, Hashirama's cells.

With both pieces in hand, he could experint freely.

Fuse White Zetsu's biology with Hashirama's tissue.

Create the optimal hybrid.

Then refine it until it beca the perfect receptacle, one strong enough not only to host Ashina safely, but to let him thrive.

A White Zetsu enhanced with true Senju vitality…

Designed as a container for an Uzumaki of Ashina's caliber…

Leave that perfected vessel for Ashina, and use the remaining material to create injectable solutions for himself and Akane, refining their bodies as needed, while preserving the core specin exactly as it was.

In theory, it could surpass even Ashina's original body.

After all, even though Ashina had likely also been born with the strongest variant of the Uzumaki's Sage Body, not much weaker than Nagato's.

But a body crafted from the most powerful Uzumaki soul lineage and the God Tree's and Ashura Otsutsuki's distant offshoot…

That was sothing else entirely.

Sothing beyond anything he had wielded in life.

Kimimaro almost felt the future shifting as the idea solidified.

Ashina reborn, not weakened, not restored, but elevated.

As his most powerful ally right away.

Ashina, anwhile, paused after hearing his explanation.

The worry that had flared in his tone just now softened, tapering off into sothing steadier.

Not blind faith, Ashina was never that kind of man, but the sa earned trust they had built together from the beginning.

And even though Kimimaro had never spoken of any of this before, Ashina understood the subtext imdiately.

Why had he hidden it. Why had he waited.

Why had he chosen this mont to reveal even a fragnt.

It didn't bother him too much, and importantly… he could tell the boy was not bluffing.

The cadence of Kimimaro's thoughts, the way each piece of logic fit into the next, it all rang too clean, too consistent.

Far from creating doubt, it only confird the feeling that Kimimaro truly did possess such a thod.

And Kimimaro, eventually, turned his attention back to Orochimaru, as if nothing had happened at all.

Orochimaru, anwhile, was still drifting deep in thought.

His mind kept circling back to the sa point.

His body.

His real body.

The grotesque white-snake form he had crafted after the Sage's warning.

The very thing that made his Living Corpse Reincarnation possible in the first place.

A technique that wasn't a preference or luxury, but a biological deadline.

Every vessel he took, no matter how carefully prepared, began to rot under him after three years.

Always three.

And he could never solve this problem.

Human tissue simply couldn't bear the strain of housing what he had beco.

The host's soul resisted him, slowly but steadily.

Its chakra rejected him like a mismatched transplant.

His own snake-derived physiology eroded human cells from the inside out.

His experints, senjutsu fragnts, and endless modifications pushed each vessel further toward collapse.

The symptoms always began the sa.

Pain.

Stiffness.

Failing chakra control.

Jutsu stuttering at the seams.

Organs weakening one by one.

Remain longer… and he would die inside that husk.

That was why he had to shed bodies like a serpent sheds skin.

Why the technique had to be used.

Why every three years he beca weaker and more desperate, chasing a new vessel that could survive him longer.

Why soone like Sasuke was so important.

And why the research Kimimaro had just offered, about soul conquest, synchronization, true integration, hit him like a revelation he'd been hunting for decades.

Not a trick.

A solution.

A way to refine, maybe even perfect, the very process that kept him alive.

Orochimaru's tongue flicked unconsciously.

If that research held even half the implications he suspected…

It was more valuable than most jutsu in existence.

And it explained why Kimimaro had spoken with such confidence.

The boy understood his needs.

Far more deeply than he should have.

And that was what disturbed Orochimaru most of all.

After all, if Kimimaro's soul research was even half as potent as that first scroll teased, then Orochimaru could finally learn how to completely remove the host's original soul and devour it outright.

A prospect he found overwhelmingly positive, not negative.

Why would he ever want to share his mindscape, the private inner world that housed his spiritual workings and served as the bridge between soul and body, just like the brain, with anyone else?

Even with his soul's superiority, housing multiple souls was a constant, irritating handicap.

Even if the remnants were small and suppressed, they were still there.

Still taking up space.

Still gnawing at the edges.

Still interfering in subtle ways.

Still probing for chances to break free whenever they could, especially during his weaker monts, because in theory, they really could, or at the very least, to disrupt him and interfere.

Perhaps that was why he remained so vulnerable to high-level genjutsu.

Why true rest eluded him.

Why his chakra density and spiritual potency never reached the theoretical peak he should have been capable of.

If he could learn to truly consu the original soul, not rely suppress it—

Then everything would change.

He would no longer have ntal static from intruding spirits.

No more subconscious interference from previous owners of the vessel.

No more spiritual mismatches weakening the link between soul and body.

And most important of all…

A consud soul beca fuel.

A fused, larger, denser soul ant greater spiritual weight, stronger chakra, and finally the perfect mind-body compatibility he had been chasing for decades.

Because Orochimaru always knew the truth:

The real imbalance, he lived with now, was never mind versus body, or mind versus soul.

It was soul versus body.

A soul too alien for its vessel.

A vessel too human for the serpent coiled inside it.

If Kimimaro's research offered a path to erase that mismatch entirely…

Then the boy had placed sothing on the table that even Orochimaru had never managed to attain on his own.

Not to ntion—this was only the first part.

The second part mattered just as much, and it dealt with the body itself.

After taking over a new vessel, Orochimaru always reshaped it to match his snake-based physiology, increasing its survivability by allowing the body to stretch, bend, reconnect severed parts, and shed its skin to heal.

That was the essence of his so-called "Power of the White Snake," the true, most monstrous form he now inhabited, inspired, born from, and modeled after that first, unforgettable encounter with he great Hakuja.

That great white-snake form wasn't so costic quirk or dramatic flourish.

It was the foundation of everything he was.

Without it, no human vessel could have survived even a fraction of the poisons, enzys, senjutsu fragnts, or grotesque body-mod fusions he laced into them.

The snake physiology underneath was the only thing keeping the host alive long enough for him to use it, holding the tissues together while they strained and warped under his influence.

It was also the reason he kept slipping death every ti a vessel failed.

When pushed to the edge, that form could split, shed, scatter, and crawl away from an injury no ordinary shinobi would survive, stitching itself back together in ways that defied biology.

A last-ditch immortality crutch, but a reliable one, which was perfectly illustrated during this previous battle.

And of course, the sa white-snake essence was the core of Living Corpse Reincarnation.

When the vessel finally rotted from the inside, when the rejection, corrosion, and soul mismatch beca too severe, he shed it like dead skin, sliding into the next host and overwriting their consciousness in a single motion.

Because all those miracles ca with a cost.

Every modification he forced onto a vessel, every drop of snake-physiology he imprinted onto human flesh, drained it faster.

The more he stabilized himself, the more the body destabilized.

Three years was the outer limit.

Any longer, the vessel collapsed, organ rot, chakra failure, neural degradation.

If he stayed too long, he died with it.

Which was why Kimimaro's offer hit him like a quiet thunderclap.

The boy's soul research addressed the spiritual side, offering a way to erase the host's soul completely and fuse with the vessel instead of wrestling it, eliminating the instability at the core. And the second scroll…

That theoretical frawork for strengthening the vessel's own physical essence and vitality, even just enough to potentially match the modifications and white-snake corrosive imprint…

After all, Yang Release woven into cellular manipulation… what else could that be, if not the gradual enhancent and fortification of a physique?

If the two were combined, then for the first ti in decades, Orochimaru saw a path where his vessels wouldn't tear apart under him.

A path where his longevity didn't hinge on a three-year deadline.

A path where his power could finally multiply the way it always should have. At least double.

Previously, Orochimaru had always assud there was only one way to solve his greatest flaw: he had to climb into a vessel powerful enough that those three short years would beco brutally efficient.

A body so exceptional that he could use that ti to tear through the world, gather every secret, every forbidden technique, every scrap of lost knowledge, and bulldoze his way toward the final solution before the deadline killed him.

True immortality through overwhelming montum.

If his own mind had failed to find the answer so far, then why not force the world to think for him?

Why not raze the great villages, chain their brightest minds to his work like tools, turn centuries of buried knowledge into his personal library?

Why not hunt the man with the Rinnegan, steal his eyes from the shadows, dissect his secrets, and trace the path that power offered?

This, all of this, had always been the plan he intended to pursue once he finally obtained Sasuke's body.

In theory, it was possible.

Take a perfect Uchiha vessel, fuse it with his own accumulated intellect, mories, experiences, skills, and spiritual weight overall, white snake physical essence, and raise it from genin-level to sothing monstrous in under three years.

It was doable — maybe.

He knew the potential was there.

But certainty?

That was another matter entirely.

And now Kimimaro had placed sothing in his hands that was certain.

What Kimimaro offered was not fantasy, not a desperate plan hinged on the limits of an unstable vessel.

If it was truly as powerful as it suggested, then unlike every gamble he had ever chased…

This one was guaranteed.

And the realization left him staring at the scrolls in his hands with a rare, razor-thin silence.