Rengoku had Gaara and the others go back and rest first.
He himself came to Orochimaru's laboratory.
After arriving, he first went to where Itachi and Fugaku's bodies were being kept.
The two of them were lying there stiffly.
Really lying there like corpses.
Rengoku had truly gone all out to make Sasuke feel pain.
Kabuto was checking the condition of the two men. Or rather, the two corpses.
"Where's Sasuke?", Rengoku didn't see Sasuke after arriving.
Kabuto smiled and pointed upward, "Sasuke is in the hospital. He lost too much blood, suffered multiple fractures, and his hand was cut off by Lord Rengoku."
"Even with the Water of Life, he still needs some time to recover."
Rengoku nodded slightly and took out two small containers from his body.
Inside each floated a pair of Mangekyo Sharingan.
"Handle these first."
What he meant was for Kabuto to enhance the vitality of the eyes.
After all, the bodies were dead now, so the eyes couldn't simply be put back in.
Kabuto, already used to cloning limbs, naturally handled this with ease.
He took the two pairs of Mangekyo away for maintenance.
After thinking for a moment, Rengoku did not rush to revive the two of them and instead went down another floor to find Orochimaru.
When he arrived, Orochimaru was slicing flesh off Hidan's head.
The sharp scalpel danced in his hand as all the flesh on Hidan's face was shaved away.
Even with the Evil God's protection keeping him alive, Hidan was still in so much pain that his eyes were full of blood vessels.
The lower half of his mouth had already rotted away, otherwise nobody knew how loudly he would have screamed.
"So, have you figured out what this thing is?", Rengoku had always been curious about Hidan.
He could not understand why this guy still wouldn't die even after losing his head, so he specifically handed him over to Orochimaru for research.
For Orochimaru, Hidan still had plenty of research value.
"Have you seen the Evil God he worships?", Orochimaru asked Rengoku while testing the flesh he had cut off.
Rengoku shook his head, "I only know this guy worships an Evil God, but I don't know which Evil God it is. So, did you find the secret behind his immortality?"
There was some interest on Orochimaru's face, "This man called Hidan is not a living person."
"Not alive?", Rengoku did not understand at first.
Orochimaru pointed his scalpel at the flesh being tested.
"To be exact, this body is only a corpse."
"The Evil God fixed his soul onto this corpse, so no matter how many pieces he's cut into, he won't die."
Rengoku sounded surprised, "So Hidan is basically a living corpse?"
Orochimaru stuck out his tongue and licked his own face, showing an interested expression, "That's right. To be exact, he is a living corpse."
"But everything about him depends on the Evil God, so he must continuously satisfy the Evil God's conditions in order to keep living."
Hearing this, Rengoku became interested too.
"Are there many gods in the ninja world?"
Orochimaru let out a laugh, "I thought you knew everything."
Rengoku shrugged helplessly, "How could I? The world is so big."
Orochimaru thought for a moment.
"As long as the gap in level is too large, or the other party's abilities are special enough, they can be considered gods."
Rengoku naturally understood this logic. After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, his own abilities were basically no different from a god's.
He could breathe fire, spit water, fly, and even save the dead.
Aside from reviving the dead, he was no different from the Calabash Brothers.
If that wasn't a god, what was?
Orochimaru continued, "But these kinds of special gods usually aren't from this world."
"In some unusual places in the ninja world, there are gaps in space-time that allow creatures from another dimension to accidentally come here, or establish a way to communicate with people in the ninja world."
"They use their special abilities in exchange for certain things they want."
Orochimaru pointed upward, "For example, the Shinigami from the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. The mask you found last time was equivalent to part of the Shinigami's power."
Hearing this, Rengoku was somewhat surprised, "I thought that Shinigami only had that little bit of ability."
Orochimaru denied it, "No. He still hasn't digested Minato's soul after all these years."
"That means that Shinigami is only a product of rule-based energy and does not possess intelligence."
"He may even be trapped in the ninja world and unable to return to his original world."
Orochimaru paused there.
"But these are only my guesses. As for where the Shinigami actually came from, probably only the original Uzumaki clan members who signed contracts with it know."
Seeing Rengoku interested, Orochimaru said a few more things.
Then he changed the subject and pointed at Hidan, whose flesh had mostly been shaved off.
"The Shinigami wants souls. This Evil God probably wants life force."
"But according to what you said, if his method of taking lives through curses is real, then it does have research value."
Rengoku rubbed his chin.
"An ability based on causality naturally has research value."
"Causality?", Orochimaru repeated the word, and his eyes lit up.
"That term fits well."
Rengoku moved beside Hidan's head, "Now that only his head is left, will his body grow back automatically?"
Orochimaru answered as if it were obvious.
"Why go through that much trouble? He's just a living corpse. Any corpse will do."
"Kill a Sarutobi clan member, cut off the head, and stitch his onto it."
A lot of people had died in Konoha this time, so naturally there was no shortage of corpses.
But Orochimaru would not touch the bodies of those people. Over the years, he had built up some reputation, and it brought him plenty of wealth and convenience.
There were several thousand Sarutobi clan members in total. They were not all dead yet, so this counted as recycling waste.
"All right then. Handle it however you want. Once you put him back together, we need to study him properly."
Orochimaru made a gesture and carried Hidan's head downstairs.
———
Overall, Rengoku had basically achieved his goals in this incident.
Sasuke had successfully awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan, and the village's losses were not too severe.
The deaths of Itachi and Fugaku had been part of the plan from the start.
Although Obito now possessed dual Kamui, Rengoku still had other ways to deal with him. [T/N: Says the man that got fiddled by Obito twice.]
Originally, Rengoku had planned to let Konoha continue developing for a while longer before beginning war across the ninja world, but Shukaku's appearance this time gave him an excuse to start fighting.
The village was still in chaos right now, though.
At the very least, the village's order needed to be restored before the next step of the plan could begin.
Rengoku opened the Bond Star and took a look.
As expected, after Sasuke awakened his eyes, the four-star bond was already full.
But with a casual glance, he noticed that Gaara's four-star bond was also full.
'Did Gaara's strength increase again?'
Rengoku did not know why Gaara had broken through, but it was a good thing regardless.
Now all that remained was waiting for order in the village to recover.
[🎉 Shoutout to Salty, Steffen, what_iz, julien and archer for joining p@treon. Thank you very much.🤗]