Chapter 577: Otsutsuki Toneri
"..."
Orochimaru refused to speak.
He did not even seem willing to acknowledge Kenichi's presence.
Kenichi did not mind.
After everything Orochimaru had endured at his hands, including repeated operations on his soul, it would have been stranger if he suddenly became cooperative.
Unless Orochimaru somehow developed Stockholm syndrome, Kenichi could hardly imagine him willingly chatting with the person conducting experiments on him.
So Kenichi said nothing more.
He simply walked over, extracted Orochimaru's soul, and began examining its current condition.
"Interesting."
Kenichi carefully studied the soul before him.
The transformation had now become complete.
Aside from Orochimaru's recognizable face, the rest of his soul had fully taken on female characteristics.
Even the areas Kenichi had previously altered had begun healing.
When he examined those locations, the only remaining traces were faint spiritual scars.
Kenichi nodded in satisfaction.
The experiment had succeeded.
Orochimaru's soul had successfully completed the transformation.
More importantly, the chakra needle Kenichi had previously implanted inside the soul had already dissipated.
It was no longer artificially stimulating Orochimaru's body.
Yet Kenichi discovered something strange.
The host body was still maintaining the hormonal state that had resulted from the earlier stimulation.
That immediately caught his interest.
Under normal circumstances, those levels should not have remained elevated once the external stimulation disappeared.
Yet they had.
If that condition continued, would Orochimaru's soul undergo further changes?
Could the transformed soul, in turn, influence the body?
Kenichi wanted to test it.
Unfortunately, Orochimaru had absolutely no intention of cooperating.
He kept his head lowered the entire time without saying a word.
If Kenichi could not still detect his breathing, he might have mistaken him for a corpse.
It did not matter.
Kenichi's Rinnegan flashed.
The next moment, Orochimaru slowly raised his head.
His eyes were dull and expressionless.
Kenichi smiled faintly.
While separated from his body, Orochimaru's resistance to genjutsu had become even weaker.
Controlling him in this state was almost effortless.
Kenichi examined Orochimaru's face more carefully.
Then his eyes narrowed.
Something had changed.
Previously, Orochimaru's facial structure had remained almost exactly as Kenichi remembered it.
Now, however, the lines of his face had softened slightly.
Several details in his facial features had subtly shifted as well.
Kenichi had spent years as Orochimaru's disciple in his original timeline.
He was extremely familiar with his teacher's appearance.
There was no mistaking the difference.
Kenichi rubbed his chin.
"Could changing the soul cause the physical body to change in response?"
He had never performed any cosmetic or reconstructive surgery on Orochimaru's face.
If the body was now changing on its own, that suggested the soul might indeed exert some influence over physical appearance.
"I'll need to keep observing."
Another thought soon came to him.
"Could a ninjutsu directly stimulate specific emotions in someone?"
Kenichi looked thoughtfully at Orochimaru.
The soul was already proving to be far more complicated than he had initially imagined.
If spiritual manipulation could alter physical characteristics, perhaps it could also influence emotional states.
At first glance, that might not sound especially useful.
But Kenichi could immediately think of several applications.
What if he could make someone instinctively feel goodwill toward him without understanding why?
Or, during battle, what if he could amplify an opponent's anger until they lost their judgment and began making reckless decisions?
Those effects could be extremely valuable.
To a certain extent, manipulating emotions was already a primitive form of mind control.
Kenichi possessed parasites capable of controlling other people.
However, those had clear limitations.
They were mainly effective against targets weaker than himself.
The parasite also needed to be implanted successfully, and the target had to lack the ability to remove it.
During an active battle, that made the technique almost useless.
That was why Kenichi had become interested in developing ninjutsu that could directly alter an opponent's emotions.
Unfortunately, reaching that point would be difficult.
At present, he had almost no useful leads.
Logically, influencing emotion meant influencing the brain.
But that created an obvious question.
If Kenichi already had the ability to directly interfere with an enemy's brain, why bother manipulating their emotions?
He could simply destroy the brain and end the fight.
That contradiction left Kenichi somewhat conflicted.
"Forget it."
He shook his head.
"I'll deal with that when I have a better idea."
"For now, I should go to the Moon and bring Toneri down first."
Kenichi returned Orochimaru's soul to his body.
There was no reason to keep forcing an experiment without a clear direction.
He could resume once he had better ideas.
...
"Is this it?"
Kenichi stared at the structure in front of him.
Then he glanced toward Hagoromo, who stood beside him.
Curiosity flickered in Kenichi's eyes.
He did not know the exact distance between the Shinobi World and the Moon, but it obviously was not short.
Yet some ancient technology in this world could apparently transport someone there almost instantly.
The level of Otsutsuki technology truly made no sense.
Hagoromo nodded.
"This is one of the methods left behind by the Otsutsuki Clan. It can be used to reach the Moon."
Kenichi examined the device more carefully.
"Back then, my brother Hamura and I sealed our mother."
Hagoromo's expression became more serious.
"Afterward, Hamura went to the Moon to continue watching over this world, while I remained here."
He paused.
"The situation on the Moon is complicated now."
Hagoromo looked directly at Kenichi.
"If possible, do not kill Hamura's descendants."
Then he sighed.
"At the very least, leave one branch of the bloodline alive."
Hagoromo clearly cared deeply about his younger brother.
Without Hamura's help, even Hagoromo would not have been able to seal Kaguya.
Kenichi nodded.
He found Hagoromo's concern almost excessive.
The old man had already made the same request before, yet here he was saying it again.
Still, Kenichi did not object.
He had never intended to kill Toneri anyway.
Toneri's bloodline was far too valuable.
Then another thought occurred to Kenichi.
There was something he had not yet asked Hagoromo.
If the answer was favorable, he might not even need to travel to the Moon at all.
"By the way, Sage of Six Paths."
Kenichi looked at Hagoromo expectantly.
"Do your remains still exist?"
"And what about Hamura's?"
The easiest way to obtain Otsutsuki genetic material would obviously be from preserved remains.
Isshiki was much more troublesome.
His current existence was strange.
Kenichi was not even sure whether extracting flesh from his present body would yield pure Otsutsuki genetic material.
In Kenichi's mind, Isshiki's current state was almost like a USB drive containing the complete files and system settings of one computer.
That USB drive had then been inserted into another computer, Jigen.
Now the data was gradually overwriting Jigen's original system and transforming him into Isshiki.
But the overwrite clearly had not finished.
Otherwise, Isshiki would likely have resurrected completely long ago and begun acting openly.
Using the same computer analogy, perhaps some of the files inside Isshiki's "USB drive" were damaged.
He needed to repair those files while simultaneously overwriting Jigen.
Naturally, that would slow the process.
That was also why Kenichi had never seriously considered simply carving some flesh out of Isshiki's current vessel and analyzing it.
The genetic state might already be chaotic.
Jigen's original genes and Isshiki's Otsutsuki genes could be mixed together in a complete mess.
"No."
Hagoromo shook his head decisively.
"I burned my own remains after my death."
"As for Hamura, he lived on the Moon for many years afterward."
Hagoromo looked upward.
"Where his remains eventually ended up, I do not know."
Kenichi glanced at him.
For some reason, he had the faint impression that Hagoromo might be hiding something.
But he did not bother arguing.
He had only asked casually.
If the bodies still existed, they would have saved him some effort.
If not, then so be it.
Had Kenichi understood the time machine better, he might even have considered traveling directly back to the era when Kaguya and Isshiki first arrived.
Then he could obtain genetic samples directly from them.
He would not even need to defeat them.
A strand of hair would be enough.
A tiny piece of flesh would be even better.
Grab the sample.
Then immediately escape through time.
Unfortunately, Kenichi did not want to take that risk yet.
He was not even sure whether the machine could travel that far into the past.
The fact that it could move backward through time at all, much less cross timelines, already seemed absurd.
In his previous life, countless scientists had studied the theoretical possibility of time travel.
But with humanity's technological level at the time, traveling into the past had effectively been impossible.
Predicting the future had slightly more theoretical possibility.
Even then, it remained only theoretical.
A theory being mathematically possible and actually being achievable in reality were completely different things.
Yet now a genuine time machine sat within Kenichi's possession.
If such technology existed in his previous world, any nation that obtained it would probably treat it as the highest state secret imaginable.
Kenichi absolutely intended to continue studying it.
But his current power still did not make him feel completely secure.
If he wanted enough time and safety to investigate such things slowly in the future, then he needed more strength.
That meant going to the Moon.
Bring Toneri back.
Study his bloodline.
Determine whether Kenichi could also obtain the Tenseigan.
If he could combine the power of the Tenseigan with his Rinnegan, his strength might rise dramatically once again.
"Kenichi, there's one more thing..."
Hagoromo called out.
But Kenichi had already stepped into the pool.
The moment he entered, Kenichi felt as though he had fallen into the depths of an ocean.
His body became strangely light, as though some invisible force were supporting him.
Oddly enough, there was no feeling of suffocation.
He could breathe normally.
Around him floated numerous strange bubbles.
Kenichi's eyes narrowed.
Images appeared across their surfaces.
Memories.
His memories.
But only those belonging to his life in the Shinobi World.
Nothing from his previous life appeared.
"Interesting."
Kenichi watched the bubbles drift past.
"Some kind of manifestation of important memories belonging to whoever enters this space?"
He remembered this place.
In the story involving Naruto and Hinata, this strange passage had played an important role.
Their relationship had finally become clear around this stage, bringing an end to Hinata's long years of waiting.
Kenichi vaguely remembered Kishimoto mentioning that romance was not one of his strengths as a writer.
That was one reason Naruto had contained relatively little direct romance throughout most of its original run.
But after the main series ended, Naruto and Hinata still needed a convincing path toward marriage.
So the movie storyline had been created partly to fill that gap.
Toneri himself had also been a character designed directly by Kishimoto.
"Very interesting."
Eventually, Kenichi felt himself emerging from the water.
The scenery changed.
Before him stretched the pitch-black void of space.
Not far away hung a vast blue planet.
Kenichi brushed the moisture from his hair and looked around.
This entrance seemed somewhat different from the route Naruto had taken.
But that was not necessarily unusual.
Kenichi was using something Hagoromo had left behind to reach the Moon.
His route could easily differ from Naruto's.
Kenichi stepped forward.
Then a question occurred to him.
How exactly had Hamura managed all this?
Could people simply breathe normally here?
"Wait."
Kenichi stopped.
"This doesn't look right."
The Moon around him was empty.
Completely empty.
There was nothing resembling the civilization he had expected to find.
Then Kenichi remembered something Hagoromo had said just before he entered.
He had not heard the full sentence clearly.
But he vaguely remembered something about...
Two exits.
Kenichi's expression stiffened.
He immediately jumped back into the passage.
After searching again, he discovered another route.
He followed it.
Halfway through, however, something enormous blocked his path.
A giant crab-like creature.
Kenichi stopped.
Then his eyes lit up.
"This is interesting."
The creature began blowing bubbles.
Green bubbles.
Kenichi immediately recognized their strange properties.
The bubbles carried genjutsu-like effects and could reveal memories from a person's past.
His interest instantly intensified.
A monster with an ability like this was far too valuable to simply kill.
He absolutely needed to capture it and bring it back for research.
Kenichi's Rinnegan rotated.
The creature immediately collapsed.
It had not even managed to resist.
Kenichi created a black receiver and used it to restrain the giant crab securely.
Then he continued forward.
Soon, he found another exit.
Kenichi immediately jumped through.
The scenery changed once again.
This time, strange ruins stretched out before him.
And all around him stood a large group of puppets.
They surrounded Kenichi from every direction.
A confused voice sounded from among them.
"...Who are you?"
....
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