Birth of the Immortality Technique
His creation started, as most troubling things did, with tragedy. His creation was marred in it, in darkness he was born into even though he came from a source of light.
Masshiro Junsei was not a shinobi even though she was born to a great shinobi line in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She was the last of that great clan who rivaled the talent of the Uchiha, Hyuuga, Kato and Sarutobi.
Junsei was level headed, generous and quiet which failed to make her stand out in any particular way. She was neither beautiful nor ugly, her skin was moon pale, her eyes brown, her hair short and black. She had no particular talents; she had never even become a Genin.
Junsei worked in the Shinobi library, maintaining archives and training scrolls. She was the assistant to the head librarian who worked specifically for keeping records for the Sandaime Hokage. As a result, she spent a lot of time taking notes and records for the Sandaime, who was perhaps the kindest man she had ever met. She hoped to have a child in the future as gentle and warm as that man.
Junsei was very soft spoken and hadn't cried out loud sense she took her first breath at birth. That was perhaps why she was so unaccustomed to it and unable to scream when she desperately needed to. A shinobi would not have fallen victim to such a simple assault tactic, but Masshiro Junsei was not a shinobi. When the kunai pricked her neck, her dark brown eyes opened wide, but before her mouth could open as well, a dirty, gloved hand covered her mouth and a wicked voice slivered into her ear.
"One word, kiji, and I will grant you a second smile with this kunai of mine."
In darkness, there was no one to stop the obvious, none of the regular patrolling ANBU saw the capture, or the dragging of Junsei into a dark alley, or the violence done to her in that darkness. He would flee when the howl of the ANBU alarm rocketed through the air, leaving his victim to be found by a squad captain as he was captured by another squad.
He was identified by the Sandaime as Enjoji Kyoufukawa, an S-class mutineer in the Bingo Book from the Hidden Village of Grass. Had he been a shinobi of Konoha, they would have cut off his head and been done with it. However, because of his crimes throughout the shinobi kingdoms, it would never be believed that he was truly killed even with his head brought to the leader of Grass Country. So he was sentenced to life in the High Security prison in Konoha with no chance of release.
Sandaime visited Junsei in the hospital and learned from one of the nurses that Junesei had become pregnant. He bowed his head somberly, letting the veil of his decorative helmet cover the emotion in his eyes. He had known Junsei her whole life, which wasn't long, as she was fourteen and he was seventeen. The Professor sighed thoughtfully and wished he had brought his pipe. The Masshiro clan and the Sarutobi went as far back as the Hyuuga and Uchiha. Of the five great clans of Konoha, Masshiro and Sarutobi were equally cursed. The Masshiro were going to disappear when Junsei married and it hadn't been unexpected if the Sandaime married Junsei to unite the last of their clans.
But as it was, the Sandaime planned to marry Kato Ryoko and this incident did not clarify their circumstances.
Junsei was awake when the Sandaime approached her. It was five in the morning and the sun was finally beginning to rise outside her window. Junsei looked pale even for her skin tone and her brown eyes were dull, nearly black in her face.
"Junsei, I have heard of your circumstance. You are aware you are with child?" He asked.
Junsei nodded. She didn't move otherwise.
"You understand under these conditions that termination of your pregnancy is permissible."
"I understand, Hokage-sama." Junsei replied.
The Sandaime nodded.
"However," Junsei interrupted his exit. "I am… not going to terminate this child."
"Junsei…"
"It is no fault of this child the circumstances of its creation."
"Junsei, you are only fourteen."
"I already know what it means to be alone and you understand what it means to be the last of a clan. It is unlikely that I will marry now, this child will be my own, the next Masshiro."
"In such a time, you owe no allegiance to your clan… but to yourself."
"You say that as someone who will never be in my position. It is my will, Hokage-sama, to have this child. There are no words that you possess that will change my mind." Junsei said.
The Sandaime bowed his head and exited successfully.
…
It was during her seventh month that Junsei unexpectedly went into labor and gave birth to an underweight child. His skin was nearly translucent due to his lack of development in the womb. Though he was small, the nursing staff assured Junsei that Masshiro Orochimaru was in no danger to lose his life.
Their words were true; Orochimaru did survive and develop like a normal child with the exception of two circumstances. First, his skin tone only barely lost its translucent hue in favor of a snow white complexion. Second, the moon pale child developed a strange illness as he grew older. It became apparent to all of Konoha who knew the circumstances of his birth that the venom of the attack on Junsei had influenced his appearance and possibly his disposition.
He was a good child, exceptionally talented, a part of a trio that at the age of six graduated to genin. He was so talented that the Hokage oversaw his training. He was also a good son, obeying his mother, keeping his notes and records and personal effects closeted. He always was polite and spoke gently to his Haha. He was kind and silent, traits often mistaken for weird or dark, traits which he did not possess until he was ten years old and experienced the intimate circumstance of death for the first time.
Masshiro Orochimaru was eight years old when that fated day occurred. Only a week previous he had become a Jounin along with Tsunade and that Jiraiya. He wore his forehead protector around his forehead and his vest over his dark blue uniform. Junsei wore a feather white kimono as she moved with her son to an open air restaurant where they planned to celebrate Orochimaru's first completed S-rank mission.
Junsei had continued to work at the library, which had given Orochimaru access to ninja scrolls and shinobi provisions which he studied efficiently, extending his talent above nearly all of Konoha. At twenty three years old, the mother of an eight year old Jounin, Masshiro Junsei wasn't overly envied or lucky. But that shouldn't suggest that she wasn't happy. Because she was, she loved her son and such a simple blessed thing was enough to sustain her…
Orochimaru and Junsei had looked at each other at the same moment. Orochimaru smiled and so did Junsei. But Orochimaru's smile turned to a frown as Junsei's eyes rolled back in her head and the slight woman collapsed in the middle of the street.
"Haha!" Orochimaru yelled. The Jounin dropped to her side and tried to rouse her. "Doushita, Haha? (What's wrong, Mother?)"
"Eh? Orochimaru?"
Orochimaru didn't turn his head when the second male of the Legendary Three appeared from nowhere. Jiraiya looked past Orochimaru's tense shoulders and saw Orochimaru's Haha collapsed to the floor.
"Junsei-hime? What happened?"
Orochimaru didn't answer and a crowd began to gather around the fallen pair. Jiraiya stood up and shooed the crowd back. "Orochimaru, take your ka-san to the hospital, I'll get Tsunade."
Jiraiya dashed towards the western edge of the village as Orochimaru carefully gathered his mother in his arms and rushed her to the hospital, trying desperately not to jostle her.
The Sandaime arrived after Jiraiya and Tsunade and after Tsunade gave directions for the rest of the nursing staff to follow. Orochimaru sat by Junsei's side while Jiraiya sat in the window and Tsunade stood by the door.
"Her heart is weak… from my assessment it appears that she's suffered from a secret technique. It's a complicated degenerative chakra attack. Her chakra producing organs are… well not producing any chakra. I've only read about such a thing, I'm still trying to think of a way to stimulate chakra generation. Stopping the jutsu is a slow process. Even though the jutsu is complete, it appears to be self-sustaining… as if it's persisting on the chakra that it's steadily destroying. The heart produces the most chakra, it will be the last to fail… if we don't discover a way to terminate the jutsu, Junsei-hime will die in about two years." Tsunade explained to her sensei.
"A jutsu that acts as if its time itself… it's speeding up the aging process, Tsunade. With time, the chakra producing organs decrease their production of chakra… when the organs fail to make chakra, the rest of the body fails."
"I've thought about introducing foreign chakra, like the Hyuuga do… to stimulate normal activity. One of the members of my team is a Hyuuga, we'll discuss it and get back to Junsei-hime."
"Good work, Tsunade."
"Hai, hai." The blond medical genius made her exit.
The Sandiame motioned to Jiraiya to make his exit. The white haired ero-ninja did not resist and stood with his sensei outside of Junsei-hime's hospital door.
Behind their backs, Junsei opened her brown eyes and met the yellow tinged eyes of her son. "Orochimaru."
"Haha, daijoubo?" Orochimaru asked.
Junsei shook her head in the negative. "Iie. I am afraid I'm not, Orochimaru. I'm dying."
"Dying? Doushite? (Why?)" Orochimaru asked.
Junsei shook her head again. "All things that take form will eventually disappear."
Orochimaru frowned, furrowing his clean brow. "Is there anything I can do… to stop this?"
Junsei reached her hand out and petted Orochimaru's hand. "Orochimaru, this is the fate of the Masshiro clan, of which I am truly the last. Long before you were born, the Masshiro was destroyed by what is killing me now… I have been suffering this for a long time… and for a long time I have understood… there isn't a jutsu in the world that can heal me."
Junsei closed her eyes sadly and gave into her body's need to rest. Orochimaru's fingers tightened in the fabric of his mother's bed dress, anger flushing against his pale white features. He turned quickly and stampeded from the room, past Sarutobi-sensei and the worried Jiraiya.
If there isn't a jutsu in the world… Orochimaru thought angrily, then I will create one.
For one year, seven months, and twenty two days, Orochimaru studied every book on jutsu he could retrieve from the library his Haha maintained. His jutsu arsenal increased, as did his fever and pension for dangerous action. Jiraiya was the first to notice his deviant new nature. When they spared, he used dangerous, high level jutsu. He didn't seem to want to beat Jiraiya; it was almost as if he wanted to destroy him.
The Sandaime noticed as well and regretted greatly that his favorite student was not equipped to handle immediate death. How is there hope for him to succeed me, when he cannot stand the absoluteness of death? Orochimaru…
Tsunade continued her research but found she could do nothing with her skill. Her team made no advances and the gentle Junsei-hime continued to wilt away daily…
And everyday Orochimaru slipped toward madness.
Then came that day, that fated day…
Orochimaru returned from his S-ranked mission, having gathered a new skill set from the Waterfall ninja he had eradicated. The skill bored him, but the diversity had potential. He had made notes in his scrolls of the jutsu he had seen. None of it brought him closer to solving the tragedy of his Haha.
Orochimaru did not bathe before going to visit her. He did not care that there was blood on his face or that there was the smell of battle on his skin. Months ago Junsei had lost her sense of smell, ability to talk and most of her vision. Her internal system was failing, she was attached to a respirator to keep her lungs moving. It was only by a will to live that her heart pumped on its own.
Orochimaru made no slow approach to his mother; she would be in the same condition he last left her. He brought his notes on his research on anatomy and chakra production to read to her, though she was past the point of coherence. He would save her life first then concern himself with restoring her quality of life.
"Haha, I have returned…"
Orochimaru immediately noticed two things. First, that Sarutobi-sensei was sitting beside his mother's bed. Second, that the whirl of machinery that he had become accustomed to was not present. There was no motion in the machine work.
"Doushite, Sarutobi-sensei?"
The Sandaime turned at Orochimaru's approach and faced his most talented pupil solemnly. "I am sorry, Orochimaru. Junsei passed away this morning."
Sarutobi could see it there that something broke inside the ten year old. Orochimaru's feral yellow eyes, telltale of his violent creation, stretched in rage. His face pinched tightly and his teeth were bared as the snarl transformed his features. The Sandaime stood up and faced the raging Jounin.
"Dead… Haha is dead…"
Sarutobi nodded somberly and stepped closer to his student and hugged him. Orochimaru's features continued to twist in hatred.
How dare she? How dare she cause me to fail? How dare she prove mortality?
Orochimaru pulled back from his sensei and fled the hospital. He ran home and effectively destroyed it. He shred her books, their photos, furniture and food. He punched holes through walls and broke glass with his howling yells. He destroyed her bedroom, the living room, and kitchen, which was three-fourths of the small apartment he lived in. He moved his destruction to his bedroom. He hurled his desk from one side of the other before throwing his futon out of the window. As he prepared to tip over his bookshelf and probably set it ablaze with his ryuuka no jutsu, a series of scrolls slid over his arms from the top shelf and unraveled to the ground. The rage in his eyes barely allowed him to focus on the symbols running across the paper. Certain words stood out to his dilated pupils.
Volume… combinations… jutsu… construct… reverse mortality… immortality…
IMMORTALITY…
Orochimaru retrieved his scrolls and saw the twisted characters in his handwriting. The word immortality had been scratched out once, as if a mistake. It was true; he hadn't been searching for a way to postpone death indefinitely, just to postpone death immediately.
And that is why I failed… I cannot stop death in a temporary circumstance… I can only stop it all together… By combining all the jutsu in the world, by building my volume of jutsu to one hundred percent… I can construct Fushi no jutsu and if I can stop death permanently then I can reverse it as well.
Orochimaru collected all his scrolls before burning down his house. He moved to a singular base on the outside skirts of Konoha, not far from the High Security Prison. He sat there in secret for hours upon hours, deep into the night for days on end. In that darkness, his mind shifted. His mind began to work in twisted fashion, disregarding any value to life other than his own: the life that would have to sustain, the life that had to gather all the jutsu in the world… the life that would become Hokage and control all the jutsu and 'life' in Konoha. His serpent tongue would often snake out when he thought about the deaths he encountered in battle and wished to possess each and everyone of them to learn their secrets: why they died, what their bodies remembered, what their life sustaining chakra could do.
As one who will become Hokage, I am entitled to them now, neh? All the jutsu of Konoha will be mine, so will all the bodies. They are mine and I will take them…
The report would come near three in the morning to the Sandaime that there was a break in at the High Security Prison and that three were missing: two chuunin guards and one prisoner. The Sandaime put Orochimaru on the mission to find more clues, but he came up with nothing.
The truth was the two Chuunin had been killed on sight and the prisoner had been captured and was still alive. Orochimaru stood in his underground basement the night after the successful completion of the first part of his mission. Two bodies were stacked on the floor to be examined in the future. In the shadow he observed the one who would be his first study.
Prisoner XVIVIVIX rubbed his wrists absently beneath the spill of a single globe bulb. He was smirking contently. "I don't know who you are, but thanks for getting me the hell out of that hell hole. Can you believe I got locked up ten years ago for knocking up a teenager?"
Is that so?
Enjoji Kyoufukawa almost shuddered at the darkness in that voice. He couldn't see more than a few inches in front of him. "I should have had my head cut off. Keh, Konoha is full of softies."
Ku, ku, ku… I agree, but for my purposes… it's better that you have lived until now.
"Why is that? You got a proposition for me?" Kyoufukawa asked.
You could say that…
Kyoufukawa felt a killing wind swing through his body. His dirty yellow eyes flickered from left to right as the swinging bulb swayed. Shadows moved over his face and highlighted his dirty face and the blood from that Konoha Chuunin who had been killed during his rescue.
Enjoji Kyoufukawa…
Kyoufukawa took a step back when that chill raced through his entire body and began to choke him. His reptilian eyes widened as a vision struck him.
Genjutsu? He thought as sweat raced down his face. He had never experienced a level of jutsu this high. Before him was a snake of incomparable size and malice. The grand snake Manda stared at him and even more wickedly, another pair of snake eyes stared up at him. Kyoufukawa took a petrified step backwards. He could feel intent to kill polluting all his senses. He could taste his approaching murder.
"What do you want, bakamono?"
What I want… is to know immortality through becoming the knower of all jutsu in the world… I want to be the greatest of all shinobi: the ninja who controls death by granting it to some and denying it to other. I want to understand all the truths of the world…
"Truths of the world?"
There is no such thing as a meaning to life, only to death… I want to destroy that meaning to control it and to do that I need understand all the jutsu in the world to create the method to end mortality. A noble ambition, don't you think?
"What do you need me for?" Kyoufukawa asked.
Ku ku ku…
Kyoufukawa watched in horror as an image between a boy and a snake monster came forward. He looked physically only twelve or so, but his eyes were eons old. They knew death and death of many. His clothes were pure white, as was his skin, as was his mother's clan and even in all that white, he was sullied in blood and darkness.
"What I need from you is simple, Chichuie (father)." Orochimaru said smoothly.
Kyoufukawa's eyes opened wide as the wicked child before him opened his mouth wide and revealed a kusanagi blade. Kyoufukawa trembled and found his body could not move from its place. Orochimaru arched his back before shooting forward, his kusanagi blade dashing forward with a single intent.
"Shi-Ne! (DIE!)"
Kyoufukawa's scream was lost in the twisted venom of Umare no Fushi-no-jutsu. There in the darkness, covered in his father's blood, Orochimaru began to work; mutilating bodies to discern how they worked. He lost all emotion, all sympathy, integrity and camaraderie. He had a single specific goal: to own all the jutsu in the world to combine them to control death: to hasten it, stop it, and eventually to reverse it.
Orochimaru looked forward with wicked eyes to the day when Fushi no jutsu would be a success.
END