Snakeslayer to Snakecharmer
Chapter 001 – Sangsāra
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He was not saved in time. However, destiny still can make use of him somehow… A snake, fled from the grass, leaves behind his experiments in his flight. In quest of immortality, a series of clones were made, hoping to prolong his life. However, only one survives; a baby, with bright green eyes…
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"For the first forty days a child is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths, a hundred small lessons and then the past is erased."
- Michael Ondaatje
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Cold.
That was his first thought. It was cold, chilling him to the very bone, removing any trace of peace or warmth.
Waking up, he knew that he knew things he shouldn't. Thinking hard, he gasped as several memories, ephemeral images of forgotten scenes, bolted through his brain; a bird of fire and hope, singing a sound of freedom...an oddly bound collection of paper (Buh-uk? Book...yes, Book...) that embodied deathangersadnessbaddestrustion... a massive snake, then painpainpain ripping tearing racing throughout his body. The bird (phe-nix?) landing and crying tears, then... nothing, only an all-consuming cold, unlike anything he'd ever felt before.
Then, he knew nothing.
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Gazing down at the paperwork in front of him with disgust, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Third (and now Fifth) Hokage of Konohagakure spun his chair away from the desk with a scoff, rising to stand before the window. Less than a month after Kushina's seal had somehow failed, unleashing the Kyubi for a night of destruction before his successor had sacrificed himself to make his child the newest host of the fox, he had found that the cause of the recent disappearances was his prized student, Orochimaru.
Unable to bear the thought of killing his prized student, even with the evidence right in front of him in his student's lab, he had hesitated. Although it was for less than a second, it was enough; his student fled, putting the ANBU with him in the hospital. Now, even as he stood in his office, working on stacks of paperwork, ANBU were tearing appear the lab, uncovering all the grisly and obscene things he had done.
'Speak of the Shinigami', he thought to himself as he felt a Shushin behind him, waiting for his response. Turning, he laid sight on Inu, the ANBU commander who whose unit had accompanied him into Orochimaru's lair, and the shinobi left in charge of finding all of his student's grisly deeds. Feeling the agitation in the silver-haired ANBU's chakra, he knew that it would not end well.
"How bad?"
"From what we've found so far," Inu stated clinically, "Orochimaru could be executed hundred times over. We've found research pertaining to bloodlines, foreign and native, as well as copies of very important Justus. Most of the research so far seems to be based in genetic modification and engineering; genome alteration, limb manipulation, bloodline implantation, as well as inroads into creating genetically altered beings. However, he also had… other avenues of research."
Noting the pause in his subordinate's voice, Hiruzen closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Motioning for the ANBU to leave them alone for a while, he proceeded to bring the wards his fellow Hokages had implemented online. Feeling the shift in chakra, as well as the sudden loss of noise from the village outside, he motioned toward the commander.
"Sit Kakashi. How bad… how bad is it?"
Removing his mask as he sat, the sole survivor of the Yondiame's genin team took a moment to organize his thoughts before continuing.
"Simply put, it appears he was working on how to become immortal. From jumping from body to body as his previous one failed, to anchoring his soul to the Impure World using various objects as an 'anchor', to regeneration skills beyond that of the Uzumaki, to…"
Hearing Kakashi trail off, he pulled out a glass of sake and two cups. Filling both of the cups, he pushed one across the desk before probing further.
"To…?"
"Cloning, Hokage-sama. Using his DNA to grow a new body from the ground up; he'd likely shift his mind over to a new vessel whenever a previous body would fail. Hokage-sama, it appears like Orochimaru succeeded…"
Snapping his head towards the silver-haired ninja, he stated for Kakashi to continue, adding a bit of steel to his tone when Kakashi didn't respond.
"From the looks of it, Orochimaru attempted to create over 100 bodies; it's likely that any surviving candidates would have been put in stasis for later use or dissected for a better survival rate on a later stage. Unfortunately for him, practically every clone failed. However…there was a surprise; one of the clones didn't mature as it should've. From the notes we've recovered so far, in under a day, the clone would've been killed and dissected to see where things went wrong. However, our interruption saved it… Hokage-sama, the clone survived; it's being watched over by ANBU I've hand-picked for their loyalty and ability to keep quiet."
Thoughts racing through his head, the shinobi known to the world as The Professor slowly stood, bringing the seal wards down as he rose. Ignoring the ANBU shunshining back in, he moved over to the suddenly-nervous Kakashi before speaking.
"Take me to him."
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As Kakashi and the Hokage appeared in the temporary Command HQ set up in the lab, the two ignored the suddenly saluting ANBU in favor of moving over to the med-tent. Walking in, the elderly Hokage's breath left him at the sight.
Three of ANBU's med-nins were examining a baby wrapped in a white cloth while seven more ANBU stood arrayed around the tent, each tense and ready to act, should it be needed. As Sarutobi and Kakashi took in the scene, the lead med-nin turned and bowed. "Hokage-sama, we have found no seals, nor any signs of outside influences on the child. Additionally, we have found no sign that Orochimaru is the one looking back at us. As far as we can determine, what we have here is a baby; while borne mostly of Orochimaru's DNA, with someone else's to provide genetic stability and variation, it is a baby nevertheless. In effect, it is Orochimaru's son."
Slowly walking closer to peer at the child, his breath left him for the second time in that many minutes. The child had Orochimaru's black hair, if not spiked like Jiraiya's, but the child's eyes were green, rather than his wayward student's yellow. However, the child had gained the slit pupils of his 'father's' summons. The baby's skin was darker than what his 'father' possessed, but considering how pale Orochimaru was, that wasn't much of a statement. Other things were different, but he would definitely mistake this child for his pseudo-grandson had he not known about the cloning. Hearing the med-nin start talking again, he reluctantly looked back up.
"We are unsure what to do with the child Hokage-sama. If there were more signs of Orochimaru being in there, we would have terminated it, but as it appears to be an innocent child…" The ninja shrugged. "It is your decision Hokage-sama."
Looking back at the child, he slowly reached down to pick up the baby. Smiling softly as its (his, he mentally reminded himself) joyful gurgling, he softy spoke. "Hello little Tatsuo; welcome to the world."
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Hello one and all, itsa me Zoanzon! This here is the hopeful first chapter of another story (The Chimaera will never be abandoned; it's just difficult to come up with a story since my original plot plans had humongous holes). Now, this will become its own story at one point or another; because of this, I'm going to keep things quiet on what's going on. Can't give away all the fun can I. Until then, itll just remain here as to not clutter up my story section.
I'm also going to throw up some other fragments within the next few minutes, so there will be a rather big collection of new achapters to look at. Have fun!
P.S: Can you guess who the mystery person is? It's easy enough, but… let's see if you got it or not.