A massive scroll lay unfurled before Hayashi, covered in neat, pitiless characters: a chronicle of six months of torment inflicted on the one who had called himself Max. What had happened at that blood ceremony… had gone too far. Even beyond the boundaries of their 'modest' True Jashin cult.
Hayashi knew of another cult, powerful and ancient, the one their group had split from decades ago. In his youth he had brushed against their secrets in passing, before disappointment and hunger for power drove him away to found his own doctrine. He had heard whispers of true immortals who served Jashin, but he had always believed it was either a myth, or a privilege reserved for the chosen, beyond the reach of people like him.
But the scroll… and what he had seen with his own eyes… was undeniable. Cursed, absurd, yet immortality.
His gaze slid back over the cold lines of the reports:
Experiment 5. Effect of dismemberment.
'Cutting with a knife… After stitching, the subject could move freely. Even after mincing… the rejoining process is extremely slow… The test subject cannot be killed… Max retains the ability to feel pain… continued to scream and curse.'
He pictured it: shrieking, foul-mouthed rage, chunks of flesh knitting together in frantic spasms under the indifferent eyes of scientists. Revolting. Unmanageable.
Experiment 21. Effect of fire.
'Fire Release used… no resistance… with complete charring, tissue restores activity… killing is impossible… with adequate nutrition, any part can regenerate fairly quickly.'
'Adequate nutrition.' The phrase made Hayashi clench his jaw. How many resources vanished into that bottomless gut?
Experiment 29. Effect of lightning.
'Lightning Release used… causes no damage… strongly stimulates tissue, accelerating regeneration… causes extremely severe hunger. Not recommended.'
Useless. Worse than that: counterproductive.
Experiment 36. Effect of starvation.
Prolonged starvation will slowly exhaust… The process will take approximately one to two years.
One year… or two. Not immediate. But at least it was a weakness.
Experiment 45. Use of tissue.
'Implantation into others… all… died… no way found to stop the process… an immortal body may not be a blessing… but a curse.'
Final conclusion.
'An immortal body cannot be killed with seals, weapons, or elemental techniques. Only starvation… The subject has almost no chakra…'
A curse. Exactly. A gift he couldn't use, a gift that only devoured resources and bred chaos.
Hayashi snapped the scroll shut. He lifted his eyes from the parchment and stared into the empty space beyond a stone pillar.
"How is the surviving 'Gift'?"
From the shadows, as if the darkness itself had given him form, an old man in a white coat stepped out, now even more worn and smeared with dark stains. His bow was deep and respectful, but fatigue and dull irritation sat in his eyes.
"Divine Messenger-sama, per your order, the Gift was subjected to high-level mental techniques. Now he is… a blank slate. Ready to carry out your will. His name is Haruto. As soon as we obtain a sample of the Fire Country daimyo's blood, the Cursed Technique: 'Life-Governing Blood' will be activated. Life for life. He will become the perfect instrument of retribution."
"Good," Hayashi said, his voice flat, without emotion. "Keep an eye on the 'Gift'. No… keep an eye on Haruto. From now on, his life is the key to the daimyo's life. He is our sharpest kunai."
The old man nodded, but he did not leave. His gaze slid aside, towards where another 'treasure' languished behind doors and reinforced grates.
"And… the immortal?" he asked, with a cautious curiosity that clearly carried the hope of resolving this problem as quickly as possible.
Hayashi froze. His face, usually a stone mask, twitched with irritation. He knew very well what Max had become to his cult over these six months.
Using his invulnerability like a shield, the boy behaved like a rabid, ravenous beast. Battle pills, a concentrated source of chakra and nutrients, vital to shinobi, he shovelled down by the bowl like cheap sweets. Any attempt to cut his rations sparked fits of rage. Max would start smashing his head against the walls, carving deep grooves into the stone, or find loopholes to clean out the stores meant for other cells.
In less than half a year he had managed to dig several tunnels linking his cell to neighbouring ones, not out of cunning, but simply from boredom and uncontrolled energy. And all of it accompanied by endless howling about hunger.
After a heavy pause, during which the old man could almost physically feel the Messenger's growing displeasure, Hayashi forced out a question.
"Did you use mental techniques on him? The ones meant to suppress will? Or to instil loyalty?"
The old man's face darkened. He fidgeted, lowered his eyes, as if about to confess to a serious crime.
"Yes, Divine Messenger-sama… We used… everything. From basic hypnotic suggestions to the most complex genjutsu, affecting the subconscious and deepest fears. But… the results…" He swallowed. "They were extremely… specific."
Hayashi slowly raised the single eyebrow untouched by ugly scars. The old man's silence said enough on its own.
"Now," the old man continued, choosing his words with difficulty, "the immortal… he… seems to sincerely believe that he is… uh… the incarnation of Jashin-sama himself in our world. That his 'trials' are a sacred ritual, and our shinobi are his unworthy, but obligated, disciples. He… demands proper respect. He attacks guards if they aren't respectful enough… or if, in his opinion, they bring too little food. He curses… creatively, Divine Messenger-sama, very creatively, using words that…" The old man reddened. "Words even adult slum shinobi shouldn't know."
He clearly wanted to keep going, to pour out complaints about guards rubbing their fists raw trying to restrain the madman, about constant theft and destruction. But Hayashi lifted a hand sharply, cutting him off. His face held the highest degree of weary exhaustion at the whole affair.
"Enough. From now on your task is to use that… cursed… thing exclusively as a test subject for new ninjutsu, seals, or poisons. No contact except what is necessary for experiments. And… the sacrifice. Is it ready?" His voice turned icy, leaving no room for discussion.
The old man's face became serious at once, professional.
"Everything is ready, Divine Messenger-sama!"
Hayashi nodded, short and hard. Without another word, he rose, took the ill-fated scroll, and left the room, his dark cloak sliding through the doorway and dissolving into the corridor's gloom.
The old man remained alone, watching the leader go. A deep, hopeless sigh escaped him at the thought of what waited in cell number seven, that immortal nightmare named Max. He shook his grey head and trudged down the corridor back to his domain, the laboratory and the prison blocks. In his mind he kept complaining about his miserable fate, saddled with an immortal underage idiot.
"Ah, Divine Messenger-sama… I think that freak should just be locked in the deepest cell and the road to it forgotten for a couple of years. Let him quietly shrivel from hunger in there. He acts like some invulnerable little god, but really he's just a parasite, stuffing his face like a pig before slaughter. And you, Hayashi-sama, act like you don't understand. Battle ration pills don't grow on trees. Each one costs money. He's already eaten more than half my annual research budget. Whole scrolls of unique formulas I can't test because I don't have the necessary components, because all the money goes to feeding that insatiable, stupid demon!"
As the warden of this small but deeply concealed base, the old man knew the value of every crumb. He kept meticulous records. Ordinary prisoners got one, at most two, low-grade pills a day, just enough to keep them from dying.
Guard shinobi and scientists received three to five standard pills. But Max… Max demanded meals three times a day. And each time, an entire bowl of top-grade, highly concentrated battle pills. His daily ration equalled the consumption of everyone else on the base combined: guards, scientists, remaining test subjects. Economically, it was catastrophic.
But worse than financial ruin was the chaos. What had once been an exemplary, quiet, tightly controlled prison-lab had turned into a branch of hell, all because of Max. His howls, his cursing, his pounding on the walls, his attempts to escape out of sheer boredom, which inevitably ended in crashes and destruction, his demands to 'bring a sacrifice to Jashin' in the form of an extra portion of pills…
The old man had noticed that several young, impressionable low-rank cultists had begun looking at the immortal with a sick kind of reverence. They whispered that if Jashin had granted him such mercy, then there had to be something… sacred in him. It seemed blasphemous to keep the 'chosen one' locked up.
And the old man's attempts to explain that this was not mercy but a curse, and that the boy was a burden, ran into blank incomprehension or even grumbling. Max, without realising it, had become a point of division, and yet another source of headache.
"Damn it…" the old man groaned inwardly, rubbing his temples where the familiar ache was already starting to throb. "Why is he so stupid? Why can't he see? I've done everything for him!"