"Sensei, can I study him?"
Kenichi's eyes lit up instantly.
Right now, what he needed most was a jutsu that belonged only to him.
And in his mind, stimulating cancer cells to go berserk was a perfect direction.
He'd been disappointed when the Konoha hospital had no such cases.
He hadn't expected to find one… here.
Orochimaru watched his disciple's excitement with an amused smile. What he appreciated most about Kenichi was that they shared the same thing:
A twisted, burning love for "science".
"Of course you can," Orochimaru replied.
He pressed a control panel.
The glass tank slowly opened with a hiss, and a sour, rotten smell spilled out.
"Sensei, which part of his body has the abnormal growth?" Kenichi asked. Cancer cells were usually hidden deep inside; from the outside this man didn't look like he had some kind of skin cancer.
"The brain," Orochimaru said, pointing. "It's spread enough to affect his eyes as well."
Kenichi leaned closer.
Now that the nutrient fluid had drained, he could see it clearly—
On the surface of the man's eyeballs, strange, fleshy growths clung like pale leeches.
"Sensei, can I take a slice?" Kenichi rubbed his hands together, already reaching for a scalpel. This was a live, perfect cancer sample.
Orochimaru's expression turned faintly strange, then curved into a smile.
He gestured for Kenichi to do as he pleased.
Kenichi didn't think too hard about it. He was focused on the experiment. He raised the scalpel and gently touched the tip to the man's eye—
The "corpse" exploded into violent struggles, veins bulging, a muffled scream tearing out of his throat.
Kenichi froze for half a second.
He's still alive?
"If he were dead, his value would be far lower," Orochimaru said softly behind him.
Right.
This was Orochimaru.
In the early part of the story he'd been the absolute villain, and even if he "washed clean" later, nothing erased what he was now.
"Sensei is right," Kenichi replied calmly.
Then, with his face blank and his hands steady, he pressed the man's head down and scraped the growths off the eyeball, piece by piece, into a petri dish.
Screams.
Blood.
Shaking restraints.
The Hyūga man glared at Kenichi with hatred and pain, veins bulging around his Byakugan.
Kenichi didn't even look at him.
His full attention was on the tiny gray-white tissue in the dish.
Cancer cells died when the host died.
And once outside the body, they weren't kings anymore—
A random bacteria infestation could beat them down.
Even the famous HeLa cells from his previous world were fragile and hard to maintain.
So Kenichi ignored the hoarse screams and rushed to the microscope like a kid guarding his dessert.
Orochimaru watched in silence, then smiled faintly.
Yes… this disciple really is very similar to me.
Kenichi, meanwhile, was completely absorbed.
Under the microscope, he observed the unusual cells carefully. He couldn't say 100% that they were cancer cells, but in structure and behavior… they were very close.
Then he noticed something interesting.
When he wrapped the cells with chakra, their activity changed dramatically.
"Cancer cells are still cells," Kenichi muttered to himself. "They need nutrients to grow and divide. My chakra nature is lightning and fire… those won't work."
Under the microscope, the cells he'd wrapped in his regular chakra began to wither and slow down.
That made sense.
Lightning and fire weren't exactly nurturing.
But then he remembered—
In this world, chakra wasn't just the five basic elements.
There was also yin and yang.
Yang Release—life force itself. The Senju clan was overflowing with it, and Hashirama was practically walking pure Yang chakra.
And Kenichi now had Hashirama's Sage Body.
His chakra had changed too. When he cultivated lately, he could faintly sense a warm, vibrant current that wasn't there before.
"What are you studying now?"
Orochimaru had finished sealing the Hyūga back into the tank, and wandered over with mild curiosity.
"These ones are already dead," Kenichi said, frustrated. "Sensei, can I… experiment on that Hyūga again?"
If he could pour a huge amount of life force into the cancer cells still inside the man's body—
How terrifying would the growth become?
"As long as you don't kill him," Orochimaru replied, looking quite pleased, "you may do as you like."
Kenichi nodded quickly.
Relax, Sensei.
This test subject was incredibly valuable. How could he kill him before getting results?
Under Orochimaru's watchful gaze, Kenichi walked back to the tank.
This time, he didn't reach for the scalpel.
He stood beside the unconscious Hyūga, thinking hard, then pressed his palm gently against the man's cheek. Chakra flowed from his hand over and over as he tried to pinpoint something deep inside.
Orochimaru watched for a while, then spoke.
"You've learned the Mystical Palm Technique?"
He could clearly feel a stream of chakra pooling in Kenichi's hand—soft, warm, carrying a hint of healing.
Kenichi's expression stiffened.
"Ah… no, Sensei," he laughed awkwardly. "I haven't learned it. I just wanted to… try something."
He'd been attempting to draw out the Yang aspect of his chakra and channel it directly into the abnormal cells.
But reality had hit him in the face.
Wrapping a clump of cells in a dish with chakra was one thing.
Trying to inject chakra into one specific type of cell deep in someone else's brain was a completely different game.
One was bronze rank.
The other was final-boss tier.
This experiment made something very clear:
His concept was right.
But the control required was insane.
Still… if he could one day master it—
If he could learn to target just the cancer-like cells, flood them with Yang chakra, and force them into uncontrollable growth inside the enemy's body…
Then he'd have his own original, terrifying jutsu.
For now, though—
It was still beyond his reach.
(End of Chapter)