In the shinobi world, souls really do exist—
that much is beyond doubt.
But what actually stores and shapes a person's memories?
Is it the soul?
Or the brain itself?
That… is a very interesting scientific question.
And right now, Amamiya Kenichi wanted to find out.
He wanted to test whether the "conditioning" he'd inflicted on Yuki before—
that cruel training that turned a simple head-pat into a full-body shiver—
would still work on Orochimaru after casting Living Corpse Reincarnation into her body.
In other words:
Does the habit stay with the body… or follow the soul?
This was, in his mind, a very serious scientific experiment.
…It just looked really suspicious.
His hand had barely started reaching toward Orochimaru's head when she turned her face toward him.
"What are you doing?" Orochimaru stared at her disciple with a puzzled look.
She might trust him, but she was still one of the Legendary Sannin.
Basic vigilance came with the job.
It had nothing to do with "trust"—
this was just ninja instinct.
"Sensei, I saw a white hair on your head," Kenichi replied smoothly.
Technically… he had.
Thanks to his Sharingan.
He'd prepared that excuse in advance, just in case—
and now it was finally paying off.
A tiny pity though.
He'd really wanted to run his Pavlov experiment properly:
to test whether the conditioned response persisted after soul transfer.
Unfortunately, with Orochimaru turning her head like that, the chances had dropped to near zero.
"White hair?" Orochimaru froze for a moment.
This body was still very young.
There shouldn't be any white hair.
Could it be a side effect of Living Corpse Reincarnation?
Her expression turned serious.
"Pluck it out for me," Orochimaru said.
She planned to study it—
to see whether that white hair was just an isolated anomaly, or a sign of something deeper.
Anything that might affect her quest for immortality was something she treated with extreme caution.
Living Corpse Reincarnation was her own creation, and this was only its first real test run.
Problems were inevitable.
Discover them early, fix them early—
that was the optimal path.
Kenichi blinked, then lit up internally.
He'd thought his experiment was dead in the water.
He had not expected the opportunity to walk back into his hands.
So his hand shot out like lightning.
Before Orochimaru could change her mind, he plucked the white hair—
and, very naturally, let his fingers slide over the top of her head.
Yup. That was definitely a head-pat.
Good, firm contact.
The feeling was… well, just like patting anyone else's head.
Warm, alive—no strange sensation.
So this body is fully alive after all, Kenichi mused.
Which made sense.
This body could produce chakra and eat normally; there was no way it was a corpse.
He watched his teacher carefully, looking for any hint of a reaction.
Orochimaru, however, looked perfectly normal.
Not a twitch. Not even a blink.
Kenichi felt a wave of disappointment.
It seemed that without constant reinforcement, the conditioning he'd drilled into Yuki had already faded.
No subconscious flinch. No instinctive shiver.
Nothing.
"Here you go, sensei. Your white hair," Kenichi said, handing it over.
Orochimaru took the hair and turned to leave, heading for her lab to investigate it properly.
As she walked away, she casually tossed him a scroll over her shoulder.
"Take this to Amegakure. Hand it over to Akatsuki."
Looked like he'd be traveling again.
Before leaving, Kenichi packed up a portion of his raw materials.
He planned to keep experimenting with thermobaric mixtures along the road.
There was no time to waste.
With Kumo and Konoha on the verge of war, there would soon be plenty of battlefields.
And there was no better test site for a weapon like a thermobaric bomb than an active warzone.
Lots of targets.
Plenty of data.
In Kenichi's view, it was… perfect.
Time was tight. Mission critical.
After he left, Orochimaru stared down at the white hair in her hand, lost in thought.
When her disciple had plucked it out, she'd felt a strange, full-body tremor—
a kind of brief electric jolt.
That confused her.
She was certain she had no such nervous disorder.
Probably just a normal physiological reaction from ripping out a hair follicle.
Orochimaru didn't dwell on it.
What concerned her far more was the underlying cause.
Why did this newly acquired body already show signs of whitening hair?
That shouldn't happen in someone this young.
"Wonder if Akatsuki has managed to recruit anyone else yet," Orochimaru mused. "But Kakuzu is a must. Without him, the organisation's growth will always lag behind."
Kenichi, meanwhile, was already on the move.
After a night's rest, he set off at dawn, racing back toward the Land of Rain.
Someone had to work hard for the organisation's budget, after all.
If Akatsuki ever issued membership medals, he firmly believed he deserved one that said:
"I Have Contributed to the Organisation."
He'd practically become Akatsuki's version of Gin from the Black Organization—
the guy always out in the field, grinding away for the cause.
Thankfully, Akatsuki wasn't yet in the "Gin surrounded by undercover agents" stage.
The only future spy, Uchiha Itachi, probably hadn't even started his telephone pole-sitting career yet.
And Kakuzu joining would be an absolute blessing.
An Akatsuki without Kakuzu was like the West without Jerusalem—
unthinkable.
Kenichi thought about that while leaping from branch to branch, slipping across the border into the Land of Rain.
Konoha had reduced the number of shinobi at the borders, but increased patrol frequency.
Kenichi understood why.
The Leaf didn't want to be busy fighting Kumo at the front while getting stabbed in the back from another direction.
But Rain had neither the courage nor the strength to tug at Konoha's tiger tail right now.
And this conflict hadn't escalated into a full-blown world war—
which was, frankly, good news.
"The people of the Land of Rain really have it rough…"
Watching farmers bend over fields, struggling to earn just enough to survive, Kenichi couldn't help but sigh.
With Hanzō toppled, life here hadn't noticeably improved.
Even with Akatsuki lurking in the shadows, the common folk were still living the same hard, grey days.
In this era, being able to live in peace without worrying about war crashing through your front door…
That alone was a kind of happiness.
Better a dog in peace than a man in chaos, as the saying went.
As he walked, a smell caught his attention—
simple, rustic, edible.
Kenichi turned and saw a small roadside stall.
An older woman was selling food—her exact age was hard to guess.
There were a few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but not many.
The food on the table, however, was what really drew his interest:
round, black discs stacked neatly in piles.
"Excuse me, what is this?" Kenichi asked.
He hadn't eaten lunch yet.
Sure, he had soldier pills—but those tasted like punishment, not food.
"This is earth bread," a calm voice answered.
Kenichi blinked.
That voice—
He turned his head, and saw two familiar figures standing nearby.
Konan.
And the shinobi next to her.
Note: If you're interested, you can read up to Chapter 102+ at patreon.com/nakai01.