After solving the issue with the system, I started inspecting the place I was in.
There was a cracked mirror at the back of the lab.
And I, who had just poisoned the biggest criminal in the Naruto universe with an improvised cocktail, decided to walk toward it.
Because of course—what other stupid thing could I possibly do?
Every step echoed louder than my heartbeat. The floor creaked, the air reeked of chemical death, and my legs felt like they were wired together with rusty cables.
The reflection stared back at me like a delayed echo.
A girl. Maybe eleven years old...
Orange hair, freckles on her cheeks, and large green eyes. Too large. Like they'd seen more than a small body should ever endure.
A dead butterfly in the mud.
That wasn't me. That wasn't Céline.
But it wasn't Aika either.
So who the hell...?
I reached for my face, as if touch could disprove what I was seeing. My hands were thin, bony fingers, and my skin... there was something off. Under certain lights, it shimmered faintly, like a transparent membrane over flesh.
My stomach twisted.
The body didn't fit. Like a shirt worn, sweated in, and abandoned by someone else. I wanted to crawl out of it.
And just as I started to hyperventilate, a voice came from the shadows like a knife into bathwater:
"I was wondering how long you'd stay awake."
The mirror gave me another image: him.
Orochimaru.
Standing. Smiling.
Not with anger. Not frustration.
With... fascination.
"I must admit, you surprised me. Many have tried... surviving, escaping, improvising. But you... you were creative."
He took a step forward.
I took two back.
"The mix was unstable. The ingredients weren't measured. You could've died again."
Another step. His eyes gleamed with the kind of mad light that doesn't need fire to burn down the world.
"But you didn't."
Air clung to my lungs like wet paper.
I didn't know what to do. Fear wrapped itself around me. I tried with all my strength to find a way out alive. Orochimaru wasn't a normal character. He was one of the most twisted—and now that I had his attention, my second life was at risk.
I backed away until my spine hit a metal table.
He reached out his hand.
"I won't let you escape."
And then...
I felt something. As if my internal pleas for an exit, a chance, anything to save me—had been heard.
A strange sensation surged through my body. Something unknown. Something hot. Something that wasn't mine.
A pulse along my spine. A tingle down my back. Like my skin splitting open into butterflies.
My vision blurred. Everything lost focus, like reality had melted into watercolor. And my eyes... burned.
As if they were burning away what I saw.
And I looked at the reflection again.
I was no longer just any girl.
My eyes were pitch black—two open wings in the dark.
And behind me... spread two translucent wings made of chakra. In impossible colors. Poisonous. Vibrant. Alive.
[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE UNLOCKED AIKA'S ABILITY]
Orochimaru stopped.
For the first time... he took a step back.
[DO YOU WISH TO USE IT?][YES – NO]
"Yes."
And my body attacked on its own.
I didn't know how. Energy burst from me like an invisible wave. Metal bent, vials exploded, and a thick, intoxicating mist flooded the room.
Orochimaru shielded his eyes.
"What... did you do?!"
"I don't know," I panted, shaking. "But I'm not staying to find out."
I turned. Ran. Or floated. Or dragged myself with nightmare wings.
All I know is—the door gave way.
And for the first time since my second life began... I breathed fresh air.
I was alive.
And I had wings.
And no idea who they belonged to.
But freedom only lasted three steps.
Three.
Because on the fourth, something caught me from the shadows.
An arm. No. A snake. Cold, slimy, and so fast I didn't even have time to scream. It wrapped around my leg like a shackle and slammed me back onto the floor.
Back to the lab.
Or to hell. Same difference.
"Not so fast," Orochimaru muttered, his voice dragging every grave in the world behind it.
I flailed like a leaf in a tornado. The wings were still there, thrashing violently, releasing poisonous chakra bursts... but now he was ready. A sealing barrier shone before him—one of those damn techniques only geniuses like him could whip up without breaking a sweat.
"Great" he murmured, crouching next to me like a child studying a rare bug. "The wings... the eyes... the illusions. You did it on your own. Your body remembers what you haven't learned yet."
"More like the system remembers for me."
[THE SYSTEM IS PROUD THAT YOU ACKNOWLEDGE ITS HARD WORK]
Orochimaru kept dragging me. I tried to hit him. The wings slashed the air violently.
He injected something into my neck.
A second later, I couldn't feel my arms.
"I don't want to kill you, little butterfly," he whispered, that soulless smile still on his face. "I want to understand you. And if I have to take you apart for that... I'll do it gently."
Everything turned to smoke. Flickering light. Liquid silence.
And before I blacked out, the last thing I saw was his face hovering over mine—and that damned phrase that pinned me like a stake:
"How ironic. You made wings to escape... and they only brought you closer to me."
[CONGRATULATIONS... YOU SURVIVED KONOHA'S MOST TWISTED GENOCIDAL MANIAC][REWARD UNLOCKED: ALLIANCE WITH THE ENEMY]
Somebody wake me up.