It takes ten hours and seven shinobi to perform the reanimation jutsu. It is still imperfect, and from what he has learned from previous experiments, it will only work on very young children who have been dead less than 36 hours. Even then, none of them have survived longer than two weeks after being brought back, their bodies empty shells that waste away slowly without a soul to sustain them. Still, even if he only has their living bodies for a week, it would be more than enough time to learn many things from these children, and to learn more of the effects of two unique bloodlines joining together.
Orochimaru has been tweaking the process with each experiment, making it better, perfecting it. It is not the immortality or the knowledge that he craves, but it is a step forward. It fascinates and thrills him, to hold this kind of power, to hold life as well as death in the palm of his hand.
It takes the chakra of five jounin level shinobi to reach out and return life to the two tiny forms laying at the center of the intricate seal. There are two medics crouched beside them, hands glowing green as they work to heal what ended the children's lives and to reverse the decomposition that has already begun within the bodies. It is grueling work, and he has lost more than one strong shinobi to the process already. Still, he forges ahead and the shinobi loyal to him follow diligently in his wake. After all, the lives of pawns are a small price to pay in the pursuit of knowledge and immortality.
They are nearing the final stretch when one of the tiny bodies jolts upwards with a horrible noise, something caught between a scream and a gasp, full of immense pain and the terror of death. The other one is only seconds behind, and the two cries seem to harmonize and intensify, the sound echoing off the walls. It reverberates and distorts, unlike anything any of the shinobi in the room have ever heard.
The medics crouched by their sides do not stop their work.
Orochimaru moves forward, eyes hungry. Nothing like this has ever happened before, which means that something is different this time around. Three of the shinobi before him flinch back, eyes wide, and the barrier that has been erected around the seal falters.
Orochimaru promises to kill them for it later.
It is then that the mother, who had been watching the process silently and demurely, rushes forwards. His frown deepens. He had spoken with her earlier as Kabuto had examined the bodies and gathered as much medical history and clan secrets as possible, and he had only agreed to allow her to be present for the process after she had sworn to not interfere and sternly told him that she would reveal everything she knew about her clan, the children's father, and the kekkei genkai afterwards, but only if she was able to be there while her children were brought back.
Now, she pushes past the powerful shinobi that stand in her way as if they are nothing, as if they are not willing and able to kill her with a single blow. It is almost admirable.
As she rushes into the circle, her foot smudges a single character, and Orochimaru snarls. The idiotic little girl has just ruined months of work with a single step, plans that he will be hard pressed to recreate with subjects and bloodlines that will be near impossible to find again. For that, her death will be slow and excruciating, a thousand times worse than whatever agony she felt upon discovering her only children's bodies.
He is already labelling this experiment as a loss, with the seal ruined and fading and the concentration lost so close to the end, when something catches his eye.
There is a strange light swimming through the air above their heads, ethereal and barely noticeable. He watches it as it moves in erratic circles, tighter and tighter, until it converges on the two screaming figures in the center of the seal. The single trickle of light breaks off into two distinct shapes, two distinct colors of the like he has never seen before and will later find he cannot quite recall, and then they fall upon the screaming corpses.
A sudden silence falls as the children go limp. The jutsu ends, and his men either collapse where they stand or else fall back to rest against the walls, hands hovering at their weapons pouches. The medics stay where they are until the last of the glow fades away, then move back when the mother approaches.
There is a long moment of heavy quiet, filled only by the controlled breathing of trained fighters readying themselves for whatever comes next. Not even the mother dares to speak as she kneels by her children, hands fluttering helplessly.
Then, with two almighty, rasping gasps that echo eerily off the walls, both of the bodies arch upwards, bending at horrific, painful angles, mouths and eyes wide open. Their mother lets out a quiet cry of her own, reaching out to grasp at them and to run soothing hands over their figures in an attempt to stop the awful contorting. There are tears running down her cheeks, dripping onto the children's chests and necks.
"Please," she whispers. "Please come back to me."
There is no movement for a long moment, the room as quiet and still as the grave that was robbed of the children's bodies. Then slowly, painfully, the bodies begin to unbend, limbs relaxing and backs coming to rest upon the ground. A sob spills from between the woman's lips. One of the children stirs, eyes fluttering, a quiet moan pulled from between dry lips.
The mother sobs again and Orochimaru moves forward with silent steps, close enough that he can easily hear every whispered word the woman breaths. She is cradling both of the children's heads in her lap, hands moving gently through their hair and over their faces. The child who has awoken is mumbling, the words slurred so badly he can't make out anything coherent. Suddenly, the woman falls silent, her lips pursing as she gazes into her child's face.
"Her eyes are different," she murmurs, no real emotion behind the words. She tears her eyes away from the two children to look up at Orochimaru, head tilted to the side. "Why have her eyes changed color, Orochimaru-sama?"
He kneels beside them, taking the child's face into his own hands, wanting to see for himself just what this experiment has wrought. She gazes somewhere beyond him, eyes unfocused as she continues her incoherent mumbling. Her tiny hand finds the sleeve of his kimono and she holds it tight, the fabric bunching in her fist. He notes the way that the mother stiffens as the material wrinkles, but he pays it no mind.
Carefully, he tilts the child's face this way and that, squinting down at the eyes, which are now as green as Fire Country leaves, instead of the black they had been before. He can see no other changes, though.
He hums thoughtfully, then leans over to examine the second child, peeling one eyelid back. The child moans quietly, eye rolling, but it is easy to see the ocean blue color, bright despite the relative darkness of the room.
A smirk pulls at the corners of his mouth. How interesting.
"Kabuto, would you kindly take these children to the medical bay for their checkups?" Orochimaru calls, his voice soft and lilting, yet seeming to echo throughout the large room. Kabuto appears immediately, along with four other medic-nins to transport them. As the mother rises to follow, Orochimaru grabs her wrist and smiles. "While they are doing that, please follow me. I would like to further discuss your clan's medical history, and how that may affect your children and their future."
Her eyes flash, steel behind her tears, but she nods. Together they leave the room. The shinobi are already cleaning up. She pauses outside the door, watching as her children are carted in the opposite direction. He pretends to be oblivious to the way she takes careful note of which room they disappear into and of the medics that linger outside the door.
She will be making her move sooner than later.
He smiles as he turns away.
After another brief instant of hesitation, she follows after him, each of her steps echoing noisily along the corridor. He is very curious indeed, to see how her plans will play out. After all, despite being a mediocre shinobi at best, she is still a Kaguya clan member. She would not harm the children that had just been returned to her, but her bloodlust would surely take over. He would get to witness some entertainment, and he would get the prize of two young children with the bloodlines of two powerful clans to mold and experiment on to his heart's content. It is a win-win scenario.
He looks forward to seeing how much blood the woman will leave in her wake, before he kills her.
Alright, just as a preemptive strike, I'm going to put this out there now - I know that later on Orochimaru has an actual zombie-making reanimation jutsu, but this is before that on the timeline. Since people seemed shocked the first time he used it in Konoha, I'm assuming that he didn't know about it when he left. In the meantime, he's been experimenting and trying to work out his own way to bring people back. This is the result.
So, as always, thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts!
