Chapter 1 — In the Dark
Baishi only felt that he was sinking continuously, as if he had fallen into the depths of a vast ocean. His entire body was engulfed by a suffocating current, and every attempt to breathe was met with resistance.
"Am I… dying again?"
A faint, bitter thought passed through his mind.
"No… not this time"
Suddenly, Baishi's eyes snapped open. What entered his vision first was a dim, greenish glow, wavering like light filtered through water.
Instinctively, he tried to breathe, but a cold liquid flooded his throat. He choked, releasing a flurry of bubbles that rose past his face.
The sharp pain brought him back to his senses.
He turned his gaze around and froze.
Rows of massive glass capsules, each at least two meters tall, stood in a dim underground chamber. Pale green fluid filled each one, casting ghostly reflections across the walls.
Inside every glass tank floated a small child, no older than two or three years old, their tiny bodies connected to thick chakra tubes and metallic conduits that pulsed faintly with light blue energy.
The sight reminded Baishi of science fiction movies involving forbidden human experiments but the faint chakra patterns etched on the devices shattered that illusion. These were not machines from Earth's science; they were seals fūinjutsu.
"Could it be that… these are all experimental subjects?"
His mind trembled at the thought. He looked down at his own body and his heart turned cold.
Like the others, several chakra tubes were attached to his back, chest, and even neck. His small hands and feet were suspended in the same green fluid.
A wave of dread and confusion washed over him.
He wasn't just witnessing an experiment, he was part of it.
Even worse, he was no longer an adult. His reflection in the glass revealed a child, barely two years old, with pale skin and short white hair floating in the fluid.
Before his memories faded, he remembered lying in a hospital bed his body frail and broken from cancer. He had waited for death, believing it would free both himself and his grieving parents. But when their cries echoed in his ears at the end, he understood that his resignation had only deepened their pain.
If I had just fought harder… maybe the result would've been different.
Unfortunately, there are no "ifs" in life.
Baishi clenched his small fists.
"Still… even if I don't understand how I've become a child, I'm clearly alive. As long as I'm alive… there's hope."
A spark ignited in his eyes.
"Maybe this world really has given me another chance."
With that thought, Baishi scanned the area, searching for clues. This laboratory was silent except for the hum of chakra machinery and the faint bubbling of the green liquid. Strange sealing tags glowed faintly on the walls, shaped like the Konoha symbol but distorted, almost as if someone had corrupted it.
Before he could think further, a harsh mechanical sound echoed through the chamber like steel doors grinding open.
Startled, Baishi turned his gaze toward the sound. Two shadowy figures entered.
Not daring to draw attention, he quickly shut his eyes but kept his ears open, focusing his chakra instinctively to heighten his hearing.
Step… step… step…
Their footsteps echoed closer, followed by hushed voices that carried through the fluid.
At first, Baishi couldn't understand the words, but as fragments of unfamiliar yet familiar memories surfaced, he began to comprehend their language.
"How's the situation?" a calm, deep male voice asked.
"The preliminary conditioning is complete," another replied, his tone hoarse and serpentine. "All subjects are adapting well. The experiment can begin soon."
"When will you start?"
"There's no need to rush."
"Any complications?"
"Hehe… no. I recently obtained the experimental records from the village, and I intend to refine the process. The Hashirama cells from the last batch were too unstable."
"Hmm… very well. Proceed carefully."
Baishi's heart skipped a beat.
It really is a human experiment… but what do they mean by 'village'?
Before he could piece it together, their voices continued this time, the names struck him like lightning.
"Orochimaru, refrain from drawing attention to yourself. The Anbu have started to notice the disappearances. Lord Hiruzen won't turn a blind eye forever."
"Yes… Teacher Sarutobi."
The second man's voice was unmistakable soft yet cold, filled with an unsettling fascination.
Baishi froze completely.
Orochimaru. Sarutobi. Anbu.
The words echoed in his mind like thunder.
There was only one world where those names existed the world of Naruto.
He realized it now.
This underground facility… the glass capsules… the forbidden research into Hashirama cells…
He had somehow been reborn inside Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village and worse, he was trapped inside one of Orochimaru's experiments.
A chill deeper than the liquid around him crept into his heart.
This was no ordinary second life.
This was a nightmare born in the shadows of Konoha.
As for the two people who had spoken just now, there was almost no doubt left they were Orochimaru and Shimura Danzō.
That realization alone made Baishi's scalp tingle.
If those two were truly involved, then his current identity was easy to guess.
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Crunch
As the heavy metal door of the underground laboratory closed again, Baishi slowly opened his eyes.
Dozens of children floated quietly in the translucent tanks around him, each one connected to chakra tubes glowing faintly with green light. Baishi stared at them for a long moment before muttering to himself, "It seems… I'm one of the experimental subjects involved in the fusion of Hashirama Senju's cells the same experiment that created Yamato, the future wielder of Wood Release."
Even though he had already died once, a chill still ran through him.
He knew exactly what this meant.
Among all the test subjects of Orochimaru's First Hokage cell experiment, only one child the boy who would later be known as Yamato, code-named "Tenzo" survived. The rest all perished, their bodies rejected by the violent life force of the intercolumnar cells.
And from the vague fragments of memory he possessed, Baishi had no way of confirming the identity of this body's original owner.
In other words, the odds of him inhabiting Yamato's body were less than one in sixty a survival rate below two percent.
Worse still, from Orochimaru and Danzō's conversation earlier, the next phase of the experiment was clearly about to begin.
That meant he had little time left.
He had to find a way to survive.
Revealing his sentience or identity was definitely not an option. Even hinting that he was different from the other children could lead to immediate suspicion. Orochimaru and Danzō were not the type of men to ignore anomalies they would dissect him without hesitation to find out why.
Especially Danzō. The leader of Root (Ne) had no regard for human life. The moment he suspected anything, he would order a Yamanaka clan operative to use their mind-reading technique. Once that happened, not even the deepest secret could be kept.
So confession was suicide.
Sabotage was also impossible. He was merely a small child, sealed inside a tank, his chakra undeveloped. Even if he had the ability to resist, the sealing barriers placed by Orochimaru would crush any attempt instantly.
After all, these two men were anything but fools.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, yet none led to a solution.
Time passed quietly. Days blurred together.
During that period, Orochimaru visited the laboratory daily not to conduct experiments, but to monitor the physiological data of each subject. Baishi noticed the way Orochimaru's golden snake-like eyes swept across each tank, recording heart rate, chakra fluctuations, and cellular stability with chilling precision.
Finally, one day arrived that felt different.
Orochimaru came again, but this time, Danzō followed beside him.
The elder of Root wore his usual grim expression, his right eye concealed by a bandage, his arm hidden under thick wrappings. He pushed a small iron trolley loaded with test tubes filled with vivid green fluid most likely the diluted Hashirama cell culture medium.
The faint screech of the wheels echoed through the chamber, each turn of the cart tightening Baishi's chest.
Everything indicated that the next stage the live grafting experiment was about to begin.
For a brief moment, a terrible thought crossed his mind.
He wanted to rip the chakra tubes off his body and end everything himself, rather than die screaming under Orochimaru's scalpel.
But when he remembered his parents from his previous world their desperate cries, their tearful faces he forced himself to endure.
"As long as I'm alive… there's still a chance."
He repeated the words silently like a mantra, clinging to them.
Soon, the footsteps stopped before his tank.
Half an hour passed as Orochimaru examined several monitors, his long pale fingers tapping against a screen. His expression darkened slightly.
Danzō noticed it immediately. "What's wrong?" he asked in his gravelly tone.
Orochimaru's golden eyes shifted toward Baishi's tank. "This subject's heart rate is unusually high."
Inside the tank, Baishi nearly froze solid. His pulse hammered violently in his ears.
If it hadn't been for his past experience with terminal illness learning to regulate pain and anxiety through slow, controlled breathing he might have panicked right there and given himself away.
Forcing his mind to detach, he shifted his focus, letting his thoughts drift until his heartbeat gradually stabilized.
Orochimaru watched the data on the monitor for a few seconds longer, then turned away with mild disinterest.
Even with his genius, he never once considered that one of his subjects might be conscious. His mind was too steeped in logic and control; he simply assumed such fluctuations were normal individual differences.
And indeed, such variances were common among the sixty subjects. Baishi's case was just slightly higher still within acceptable parameters.
Thus, Baishi managed to survive the first crisis.
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