"Plus I'll need to test various liquids to see which is the best, then there's the whole how do I make a liquid act like a sword thing, and finding the right material to actually house the entities that are sealed away since they have to be sealed into something.
Not to mention putting it all together. Basically I need a place to work where people won't mess with my stuff, hence your lab. No one goes in there without your explicit permission."
...
Orochimaru's face splits into a wild smile. "I shall see to it that you have your own. Who would have guessed that you'd have a scientific side to you as well! Truly we are father and son! We're too much alike to be anything else!"
"You're giving me my own lab?" That's not what I expected at all. It's actually rather nice to be honest. I'll have to make sure it's well protected from nosy people but I'm confident I can come up with something.
"Of course. If we shared neither of us would get anything done. We'd constantly be distracted by what the other was working on." That's a very good point. Orochimaru would always be checking on my progress while I'd be distracted by the screams of agony from his experiments.
"Cool. When can I expect it?" If making the sword will be as hard as I think it is I'll need every moment I can get.
"A month from now." Orochimaru happily says. "We'll be moving to a new base after the news of our scuffle against the Konoha group dies down and I have a few unused labs already there. You're welcome to your pick of them."
"One month." That should be enough time to finish up here. "That'll work. I can focus on other things until then. Like genjutsu for instance."
"Would you like to start with that?" Orochimaru pleasantly asks.
"Yeah. Let's start with that. Once I get some of the basics down I can always work on improving them on my own. I'm sure the Sound Flunkies wouldn't mind being my test subjects." I can picture it now! I can trick them all into thinking the girls bathroom is the guys! Or that there's one less step on the flight of stairs they're on! Or that –
"You know I do have actual test subjects you can use." Orochimaru states, pulling me out of my fantasy of subtly torturing the Sound Flunkies.
"Wait really?" He'd actually let me do that? "You're willing to let me use your test subjects for my own purposes?"
"Yes, especially at the next base. That one has a much larger prison complex than this one. In fact it's mostly a prison complex, it takes up almost the entire island it's on." He smiles fondly to himself. "Some of my best work is done there. It's a rather sentimental place to me."
"I... uh... huh. I didn't think you were the sharing type."
"I'm not to most people but there are always exceptions. I've given Kabuto free reign as well. He uses them to improve on his medical techniques and you're much more important to me than he is. How could I not give my child the tools necessary for his improvement?"
I don't know how to react to that. On one hand it's Orochimaru genuinely trying to be nice and help me but on the other he's literally giving me people to kill without a second thought.
"Thanks?" I need to make this conversation move on. "So, how about that genjutsu?"
Wow that wasn't subtle at all.
"Yes, genjutsu. I'll teach you one of the more basic ones, the Hell Viewing Technique and you shall try and cast it on me. I will let you know if you're successful and how well you've crafted the illusion. Try and dazzle me, I expect great things to come out of your mind!"
He's letting me show him crazy things? He's letting me place genjutsu after genjutsu on him? I think I'm going to enjoy this.
...
One Hour Later
"Anything?" I ask Orochimaru.
"No."
I fly through the hand signs again and use a staggering amount of chakra to fuel the simple genjutsu.
"How about now?"
"Nothing."
"What the fuck am I doing wrong!?" I yell at myself. "It's a simple Kami damned genjutsu! The freaking Eyes of the Damned should be harder than this! Why can't I get it?! I've tried almost no chakra, way too much chakra, placing a string on you since that seems to solve all my problems and everything else I could think of! Sasuke can do this with a glance but I can't do it when my target is literally letting me place a genjutsu on them?!"
"I may know why." Orochimaru says while watching me have my outburst. "It could be interference from the Jiongu."
"What? Impossible. The Jiongu isn't chakra it's a living being." It can't be the Jiongu so what the hell is it?!
"You misunderstand, it isn't the Jiongu itself that is the problem but rather what the Jiongu does." Orochimaru is going into lecture mode and I'm listening intently. It's rare that he's wrong. "How many hearts do you have now?"
"Five. One of each element." I clarify for unknown reasons. Orochimaru should already know that.
"These hearts all came from different people, hence they make different chakra. Correct?"
"Yes. Still not following here." What is he getting at? We both already know all of this, it's nothing new.
"Tell me, what are the main ways to break a genjutsu?"
"To cause pain, the shock to the system will jolt you out of the genjutsu. Another way is to disrupt your own chakra, the sudden surge will break the foreign chakra that's in your system, and the last that I know about is to have someone inject their own chakra into your system. Adding in the third type will dismantle the genjutsu chakra in your system."
Orochimaru is patiently waiting for something. He's waiting for me to figure it out.
"Okay, so I know it's not the pain one since you're not hurting yourself. It's not you disrupting your own chakra since you want me to place the genjutsu on you. No one is here to disrupt your chakra so it's not that one. Wait, hold on a moment. You said it was the Jiongu. No, it was a byproduct of the Jiongu. You brought up that I have five unique types of chakra."
There's a beat of silence.
"Oh Kami that's it isn't it?" It all makes sense now. "It's not that I can't cast the genjutsu it's that I'm trying to make five unique chakras all work in unison. That's not how genjutsu works, the different types naturally break apart the genjutsu. In the same moment I place it on you I also break you out of it. That also explains why I can use Henge and Eyes of the Damned. They're physical manifestations of my chakra which is a whole different branch of genjutsu than crafting illusions. A physical manifestations is much more durable than a subtly place illusion in the mind of an enemy."
"Precisely." Orochimaru grins at my conclusion.
"So genjutsu is something I can't learn thanks to the parasitic thread monster that gave me unlimited stamina, insane strength, immunity to genjutsu, immunity to poisons, access to all five elements, up to four ridiculously hard to kill minions, let's me recover from just about any amount of physical damage, let's me stitch other people's limbs back on, negates my need to breathe, talks to me on a regular basis and gave me a bastardized form of immortality."
"Yes." And the award for the biggest understatement today goes to Orochimaru.
"You win some and you lose some." I shrug. It's not like I needed to learn it, it just would have been nice if I could. "I think I'll be okay without genjutsu."
"I would certainly hope so. That's quite the impressive list you have. Not to mention how formidable you are with chakra strings and that you've started to take up fuinjutsu."
"I'm just a little overpowered for how long I've been in the game. I don't feel bad about it, I'm going to have some strong people after my head now. An A-rank bounty is nothing to scoff at and with me being so young they'll think I'm easy pickings."
"Yes, about that." Orochimaru turns deadly serious. "You won't be going out for a while, even when we relocate to the next base."
"Why? I get that I have a shiny new bounty and everything but come on! I'm freaking scary!" I strike a menacing and intimidating pose.
Orochimaru merely raises an eyebrow at me as if he's sarcastically asking 'really?'
"Okay fine I'm only thirteen I won't look scary for a while. When can I expect to go on missions again?"
"When I deem you capable of defending yourself adequately from those who would go after your head. Consider it extra motivation to improve quickly."
...
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