Early the next morning, before dawn…
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Link sat up abruptly. At his signal, a shadow opened the window to reveal Hatake Kakashi, who looked unusually serious.
"There's an urgent situation, and we need your help," Kakashi said without preamble.
No point asking for details; Link hurried to get dressed, not even bothering to wash up or comb his hair. Popping a stick of gum, he rushed off alongside Kakashi, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and asking, "What happened?"
Kakashi gave a concise rundown of the previous night's events.
Shimura Danzō had made a huge mess. Even before they could interrogate him about his collusion with Orochimaru and the selling of village intel, they discovered from a Root operative's mind that there was a "test subject" about to explode.
This news traveled swiftly from the Interrogation Corps to the Hokage's Office. Alarmed, the two advisors and the Hokage went to inspect the situation in person.
Sure enough, it was on the brink of imminent detonation, with no way to stop it.
Neither sealing jutsu nor barriers could solve the problem. The person known as "Kimimaro" possessed an extremely potent, abnormal energy in his body that continually rejected and eroded chakra. The force of that dissolution was so swift that forming a long-lasting seal to contain him was impossible.
They had to maintain an ongoing sealing technique—requiring teams of ninja skilled in fūinjutsu to constantly supply chakra. If at any point the seal was broken or removed, he would detonate on the spot.
And the blast radius was said to be several kilometers, which in the wide-open ninja world wouldn't mean much, but in the middle of Konoha's residential district, even one kilometer's devastation would be unthinkable.
So, overnight, they evacuated everyone within a ten-kilometer radius. But who was going to pay for all the losses caused by this?
Plus, what about the sealing ninja inside? Were they just supposed to die there?
Hence, a big argument had erupted. The plan was to start with the test subject and hope to avoid an explosion. By now, all Konoha Hospital's medics and Medical Corps personnel had arrived half an hour ago, frantically looking for a solution.
The problem was that conventional methods—chakra-based medic-ninjutsu—were useless if said chakra was promptly dissolved. The medical-nin were racking their brains over how to proceed.
Given that Link was a Special Jōnin with numerous secret arts, a former member of the Medical Corps, and the guy who'd once destroyed Orochimaru's subordinate's barrier, he was naturally asked to help. In contrast to other med-nin receiving word from the Anbu, Link was personally approached by none other than Kakashi—which certainly showed respect.
[Kimimaro? A test subject? "Original body" cells? …]
Link recalled bits of information: Orochimaru's experiments, Sasori's cryptic comment "Orochimaru has gone far away," his suspicious interactions with certain seals…
He felt like he was inches away from the truth, just one nudge away from piercing the final veil. On top of that, he really couldn't help feeling schadenfreude over Danzō's predicament.
Just thinking of it—Danzō might be finished this time. Even if nothing actually blew up, colluding with Orochimaru, selling out the village's geniuses, plus nearly blowing up half of Konoha… That alone could toss him right back into the sewer.
Yes, some hawks in the village might support a more aggressive leader, but never a selfish schemer who endangered the village.
Still… if he faced certain doom, would Danzō be forced to make a desperate move?
Link suddenly realized that was a possibility. Armed with an armful of Sharingan, some wood release, and even a Mangekyō, Danzō might well be Konoha's strongest individual right now.
Even Might Guy, with the Eight Gates, might lose; sure, he could output massive damage, but his stamina couldn't hold up against, say, ten minutes of Izanagi stalling.
…
Two Minutes Later, in Root's Laboratory
"Tap, tap."
Link and Kakashi touched down, following the Anbu inside. All the extraneous rooms and hidden compartments had been dismantled. Only the ceiling remained—because they weren't sure whether sunlight might affect the test subject. Apart from that, the entire building had been stripped bare.
The place was huge. In the northeast corner, a group of shinobi waited to take over chakra output for maintaining the seal. Nearby stood twenty or so medics and medical-nin.
At some distance, the Third Hokage and the two advisors stood fully dressed in battle gear, ready for combat at a moment's notice. Combined, those three elders were over two hundred years old.
They were in tense discussion with Shimura Danzō, all of them looking quite grim.
Link nodded politely at the Third Hokage and went to join the medical team's discussion.
He listened for a while and got a rough idea of their plan: physically dissect the test subject while the sealing jutsu continued suppressing him. In other words, cut him up into pieces and dispose of them.
But that raised a ton of challenges: the procedure had to be perfectly synced with the seal, or any leakage could trigger a chain reaction, blowing them all to bits. Then there was the matter of dismembering him quickly enough, how to dispose of each part, where to start the procedure, identifying the root cause of his mutation, etc.
All told, they had less than 24 hours to figure it out—pretty tight even for top medics.
A crowd of nurses and junior medical staff were hastily preparing all sorts of experimental gear, while more than a dozen "Lightning Release" ninjas stood by to provide emergency power if needed.
Mokusa and Kanpō (two leading medics) were monitoring the test subject from close range, but hadn't dared to directly examine him. Any chakra they inserted would be corroded immediately, potentially causing unforeseen changes. One wrong move would blow everyone to kingdom come.
Link didn't volunteer his opinion; although his medical knowledge far exceeded that of a normal person, he wasn't up to the level of these specialized medics. At best, he was on par with the auxiliary staff preparing medical gear nearby.
Once he understood their line of thinking, he approached the subject—Kimimaro, a figure he found both unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable. He hesitated whether to try Chakra Scalpel or a Five-Element Unseal.
If it was indeed a problem caused by the cursed seal or Five-Element Seal, his method might help. But if not? He had no idea what Orochimaru had done to him.
We still don't know what weird experiments Orochimaru might have carried out. Even in the Boruto era, there are plenty of mysterious results left behind by Orochimaru's countless labs. He had bases scattered everywhere—even in the Land of Wind.
"If you want to try, by all means, go ahead."
Shimura Danzō came over, an impassive expression on his face. "Link, about the intel I sold on you, we'll deal with that later."
"If you've got any approach that might work, go ahead and attempt it. I will serve as the final safeguard." His tone and eyes exuded overwhelming confidence.
~~~
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