; snake sage ,

The more unusual requests started to come later, when Danzo asked offhandedly if it was possible to implant the Hashirama’s DNA onto a person and allow them to develop the Mokuton. Orochimaru promptly answered that it would be very hard, almost impossible to do so, since kekkei-genkai are genetically passed on and even then very rare. Danzo urged him to try, and Orochimaru started trails as one usually does ———- in a dish, then in animals. He relayed the results to Danzo but what he received was punishments and threads ; that wasn’t what Danzo had asked of him was it? He wanted to know if you could do that in a human being.

Orochimaru then understood that Danzo wanted him to find human specimens to experiment on. He vehemently tried to refuse ——— remembering years prior how he had had to chase his lover out of the village for a similar crime. Danzo however blackmailed him, holding Orochimaru’s love for Tsunade and Jiraiya over him and threatening to harm those two if he was to back down now.

And that’s how he started the human experiments. Danzo would send men and women down to the labs at the ROOT, and Orochimaru would try to merge their cells with Hashiramas in a way that made them awaken the mokuton. None of them worked, most rejected the cells completely, others were overtaken by the Kekkei-genkai. Orochimaru documented everything, and in one of the briefings with Danzo he made an careless comment about how perhaps the age of the specimens was affecting the results, and how younger people might have a higher chance at surviving.

He would never expect Danzo to start sending children his way. It was horrifying, terrible to see that each that day passes the children got younger and younger ——- and yet no result came of it. The marrow was unable to absorb and reproduce the cells, unable to generate the chakra necessary. Orochimaru stated as such and Danzo suggested that if this was the problem, if already existing children wouldn’t work, perhaps Orochimaru should make some that would.

The suggesting in on itself was insane, beyond grotesque and yet, Danzo had him in his claws now, and without Jiraiya and Tsunade around ——— to guide him, to help him ——— and with Hiruzen ignoring him in favour of Minato. Well, he couldn’t do anything but to say yes.

With arduous work he was able to genetically engineer children, a batch of 350 embryos that he placed on adapted cryotubes that simulated a woman’s womb. Each one of the embryos received Hashirama’s cells once they were starting to develop, and Orochimaru watched them growing ———— it was a remarkable experience, and yet it was tainted by the implications that it had. During this period of his life, he hated himself immensely and it only got worse when the children, babies started dying.

None of the test subjects lived much longer than three years, all succumbed to the cells or something Orochimaru couldn’t quite understand. Danzo grew angrier and more impatient ———- and Orochimaru grew more and more unstable each passing death.

350 subjects turned into 125, then 15 and Orochimaru felt like he had lost something of himself in this process. There was one child that showed some sort of progress, a boy ———— he was weak, but his chakra levels were strong enough to not become depleted by the developing cells. Subject 0046 —— a number, a tiny boy that often opened his eyes and looked at the other child next to him, that seemed to have developed a friendship with her despite the fact that it was an infant and couldn’t communicate.

It was by talking to a mother and pregnant woman that he realised what might have killed all of those children. Babies are sensitive, not just in health but everything else ——— they needed something that Orochimaru had been unable to provide, physical stimulus—— they needed to be held, to be soothed and exposed to sounds and sensory stimuli in order to develop. As more and more children died, Orochimaru became tired, tired of seeing his babies die. And so he tried something, for the first time since he had been created, subject 0046 left the tube to be cradled by Orochimaru.

He began to secretly hold the children still alive ——— now only 6, for a little bit every day. Hidden from Danzo who had forbidden him from growing attached to the children. The improvement was noticeable, those six children outlived all of the previous test subjects. When they were around 5 years of age, something changed ——— three of them died over night, bodies exploding from the inside out branches and flowers replacing limbs, a little girl’s head completely replaced but thick branches. It was sickening and Orochimaru was scared ——— scared that subject 0046 wouldn’t survive, scared of what failure could mean for him.

He realises after 0046 is the only child left, that he has grown attached to it. It speaks, probably because Orochimaru had spoken to it like had done with the little girl —— 0052 —— that had died a day before, the last three had been children, children he hadn’t been allowed to name ——- that asked him questions, that were curious in their own way. And Orochimaru still hoped 0046 would survive, that he’d be able to perhaps raise it —— give it a name. He’s been calling it ‘Lian’ in his mother tongue meaning lotus flower, for this little boy had survived and made its way out of a muddy reality.

Orochimaru did not want to hand 0046 to Danzo, and had been lying to the man for weeks, trying to come up with a plan ——— he could escape, but what if 0046 was not strong enough to handle being away from the lab, from the cryotube? it was then that shit hit the fan ———- Hiruzen found out about Danzo’s experiments, however the one in the lab was Orochimaru, and when interrogated Danzo placed the blame on the snake sage, saying he had nothing to do with it.

Orochimaru had to leave that day without subject 0046, and knowing that the only reason it had survived was because Orochimaru took care of it ; because Orochimaru had held it and fed it, and spoke to it in soft Chinese. It hurt, to leave it behind, and after the years began to pass, Orochimaru assumed it had died, after all, who else would care for it like he had done.

It was an incredible surprise to see that 0046 was alive in his encounter with the nine tails. That the little baby he had held was now a man, and went by Yamato. Orochimaru was oddly happy, thought the man seemed to not remember him, or perhaps had wanted to forget him ——— he could only imagine what he had been told. Still, the reason Tenzo survived was because Orochimaru nurtured him, Orochimaru cared for him like he was a son, and ultimately if he had been able to execute his plan of running away, he’d have raised him as his own.