Orochimaru never forgot that day.
Six years ago.
Ninja Calendar Year 48.The Third Shinobi World War had ended.
Konoha, surrounded on all fronts, paid a brutal price and claimed victory by endurance alone.
Victory.
Orochimaru stood among the mourners and questioned the word in silence.
What value did it have?
Rain fell without pause. Thick clouds pressed low, turning the cemetery into a cold basin of shadow. Black umbrellas crowded together, motionless. Heads bowed. Quiet sobbing seeped into the air, thin and exhausted.
At the front stood Sarutobi Hiruzen.
The Third Hokage brushed rainwater from a gravestone with his sleeve. The gesture spread grief through the crowd like a delayed ripple.
Orochimaru watched without expression.
His gaze shifted.
A child with a bowl-cut stood nearby. He recognized him. The boy who used to run laps around the village on his hands with his genin father. Loud. Reckless. Smiling too much.
Now, that child cried openly. Face soaked. Mucus and tears mixed into something ugly and unguarded.
The reports had circulated quickly.
Mission failure.Kirigakure's Seven Swordsmen.The father arrived too late to save himself, only his son.
Four enemy elites killed. Three escaped.The "useless" genin father died on the field.
Another child came into view.
Smaller. No umbrella.
Rain beat directly against his body. His shoulders shook. His crying made no sound worth calling one. Just a hoarse rasp escaping his throat.
Hyūga Shinya.
Branch family. Frail. Timid. No Byakugan activation even at his age. A known failure within the clan.
Officially, his father died of wounds after returning from war.
Unofficially, it was whispered that a clan elder activated the Bird Cage Seal for failure to protect the Main House.
Orochimaru recalled that man. A competent shinobi. Once served under him during the Second War.
Children sent to battle before they reached ten. Parents erased. Procedures followed.
Lightning split the sky.
For an instant, the world turned gray-white. Sarutobi's shadow stretched across the ground, long and distorted, almost inhuman.
Orochimaru felt nausea rise without warning.
What did any of it change?
Nothing ended. Nothing improved.
When the crowd dispersed, only gravestones remained.
Orochimaru stood before Senju Nawaki's marker. He placed a white chrysanthemum down carefully. His chest felt empty. Not grief. Not anger.
Fear.
Rainwater slid from his umbrella and vanished into the engraved name.
"To lose everything," he thought. "That is death."
He tightened his grip on the handle.
A small voice spoke behind him.
"E-excuse me…"
Orochimaru turned.
White eyes met his.
The child flinched under his gaze but held his ground.
"Y-your face looks unwell," Shinya said weakly. "So I thought…"
Orochimaru looked down at him.
Soft-spoken. Concerned. Fearful.
Useless, he decided.
He turned to leave.
"Orochimaru-sama."
He stopped.
"Do you know," Shinya asked, "what the meaning of life is?"
Orochimaru turned back.
"None," he replied. "If it exists at all, it ends with death."
The dead gained nothing. Left nothing.
That truth chilled him more than the rain.
"I don't want to lose everything," he thought. "So I cannot die."
Another question followed.
"Do you believe gods exist?"
Orochimaru almost laughed.
Gods. Prophecies. Idiots' comforts.
"If something lives forever," Shinya added quickly, "wouldn't that make it godlike?"
He hesitated, then spoke faster, afraid of stopping.
"My father left me a scroll. And a body. The scroll says it's a clan secret. The body doesn't age. It doesn't die. The soul left it."
Orochimaru's pupils contracted.
Souls were not fairy tales to him.
Impossible for most. Not unthinkable.
Ancient clans had precedents.
"Why tell me?" Orochimaru asked.
He lowered himself to Shinya's height, maintaining eye contact.
"Why not your elders?"
"They killed my father," Shinya said quietly.
Silence.
"You want revenge," Orochimaru said.
"I won't lose anything else," Shinya replied. "Even if you betray me."
Orochimaru studied him.
Then smiled.
Later, the scroll entered his hands.
Partial seals unraveled.
The name Ōtsutsuki appeared.
Records described non-human beings. Chakra originators. Bodies that did not decay. Rebirth through implanted vessels.
An abandoned shell. A discarded body.
Perfection.
From that day, six years passed.
Shinya obeyed. Assisted. Watched. Learned.
Too obedient.
Too receptive.
Orochimaru mistook curiosity for reverence.
Now, in the laboratory, watching Owl's body collapse headless to the floor, that error became visible.
"You…" Orochimaru asked, the words escaping before sense could stop them. "What are you doing?"
Shinya smiled faintly.
"Surviving," he said. "You taught me well."
Arrogance blinded you.
That was the lesson.
When Orochimaru attacked, Shinya did not evade.
The kunai tore through his neck. Blood sprayed.
Not the heart.
Never the heart.
Shinya smiled through the pain.
Then everything detonated.
Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice shattered the room.
Shinya closed his eyes as consciousness faded.
It's a terrible script, he thought.But I've always been good at acting.