They traveled in silence for a time, the trees above arching like cathedral rafters—twisting branches filtering the overcast sky into pale veins of shifting light. It was quiet. Unnaturally so. No birds. No insects. Only the soft crunch of earth beneath their boots and the distant crash of waves beyond the forest slope.
Sakura walked slightly ahead, her crimson combat yukata trailing behind like a streak of spilled ink in the wilderness. Neji flanked the right, pale eyes scanning the canopy. Naruto took the rear, hands in his coat pockets, ninjatō strapped across his back.
"Still nothing," Neji said quietly, his eyes still active in Byakugan.
"No seals?" Naruto asked, voice low but casual.
"None within a hundred meters. The terrain is layered, but undisturbed. Whatever protections this lab had… they were deactivated a long time ago."
"Maybe someone cleaned it before us," Sakura muttered, twirling a thin twig between her fingers like a kunai. "Or maybe the snake knew how to hide his scent."
Naruto's eyes flicked toward her. "Snakes don't hide their scent. They just wait until you're close enough."
Sakura smirked. "Aw. That's sweet, Fox. You thinking about me getting ambushed?"
"I'm thinking about the last time you nearly triggered a collapsing floor trap and laughed like it was a carnival ride."
Neji said nothing, but the faint shift in his brow was amusement enough.
The trees broke just ahead, revealing a slope of jagged rock and mist beyond. Down below, barely visible through the gray—was the coast. And nestled into the cliffside, half-covered in ivy and erosion, was a blackened stone hatch.
No markings.
No seals.
Just a door.
Sakura stopped. Her smile faded. The twig in her hand snapped.
"Looks like we're here," she said softly.
Naruto stepped up beside her. "Let's see what the old snake left behind."
---
[Hidden Lab – Southern Borderlands]
They entered one of the wider corridors branching off from the atrium. The scent of old parchment, medicinal herbs, and sealed chemicals still clung to the air, preserved unnaturally in the stagnant flow of chakra that lingered in the walls.
The first room they opened was a library.
Rows upon rows of scrolls and books lined shelves that curved around the room like a ribcage. A single circular table sat in the center, surrounded by overturned stools and dust-covered candleholders.
Naruto stepped in first, eyes scanning for traps. "No seals here. Just reinforced chakra layering… passive. Looks safe."
Sakura brushed her fingers across a stack of untouched scrolls. "Looks like the creepy old snake actually read more than he talked."
Neji moved toward the central table, his fingers ghosting over a half-open ledger.
"What's this?" he murmured. He drew the cover back fully.
A thick notebook bound in cracked leather sat atop a heavier slab of dark stone—like a bookstand built directly into the desk. The surface had faint carvings. Not chakra-etched… older. Carved by hand.
Naruto's brow furrowed. "That language…"
He leaned in. The symbols were elegant, twisting, like vines arranged in linear phrases. The cover had one recognizable line, written in modern characters beneath the unknown glyphs:
"A Study of Symmetry: Reflections Beyond Flesh and Will."
"Sounds philosophical," Sakura muttered from across the room, her eyes on another row of dusty books. "Probably wrote that while drinking tea and wondering why no girls liked him."
Neji actually cracked a smile at that.
Naruto remained focused on the stone. "It looks ritualistic," he muttered. "The patterns… they remind me of something."
He paused, fingers hovering over the carvings without touching.
"Dominion sigils," he said quietly. "First started popping up after the Nine-Tails attack. They used to file eyewitness reports to HQ—people spotting the markings in caves, shrines, abandoned temples. Half the council thought they were cult graffiti."
Sakura arched a brow, grinning. "Oh? You actually read those reports?"
Naruto glanced at her, voice deadpan. "Of course." He paused deliberately. "What? You don't, Tiger?"
Sakura shrugged, her smile lingering. "Mostly skimmed through. The symbols made my head hurt."
Naruto gave her a glance, then carefully slid the notebook aside to reveal the slab's central sigil—a distinct, spiral-like crest tangled with sharp, angular patterns.
"Found something else. Take a look at this," he called, wiping the dust away and move close to her before showing the marking.
Sakura turn to him, barely glanced at the symbol before she instinctively recoiled.
"Tch—get that thing off me," she snapped, shoving his arm aside as if the sigil itself might crawl onto her skin.
Naruto blinked. "Seriously? You can't even handle looking at it?"
She scoffed, shaking her head and walking away, rubbing her arms like brushing off an itch.
"I mean—just look at it. Doesn't the shape make you nauseous?"
Naruto glanced back at the sigil. To him, it was just an old carving.
But something in Sakura's voice—sharp, almost instinctive—stuck with him.
Like a memory neither of them had chosen to keep.
"Maybe not from anywhere we've seen," Neji said quietly.
They shared a brief pause before Naruto returning the sigil to where he found it. "We'll mark it for analysis. Let's keep moving."
The next room was smaller. Neji opened it with a cautious scan—no seals triggered.
It was a bedroom. Sparse. Functional. Scrolls on the desk, a hanging coat that hadn't gathered dust. Kabuto's, likely. The bed was made. One drawer open but empty. On the desk sat a small glass orb containing what looked like a single preserved leaf, suspended in green liquid.
Naruto pointed. "Biological stabilization. He was testing specimen preservation."
"Looks like he failed," Sakura said, eyeing the shriveled leaf. "Even Orochimaru's second-in-command didn't get to finish his science fair project."
They moved on.
The third room was darker, sealed by a layer of condensed chakra that forced Neji to concentrate fully before deactivating it.
Inside was Sasuke's old room.
The bed was stripped bare. A shelf held an odd blend of materials—philosophy texts, clan history, anatomy guides, and a few blank scrolls. A paper fan from the Uchiha district sat in the corner, bent but intact.
Sakura lingered by the shelf.
"Still feels like him," she murmured, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Naruto gave a glance over but said nothing. Neji, too, remained quiet.
They left the room as it was.
Finally, they stood before the heavy door at the end of the hallway.
Orochimaru's room.
Naruto held up a hand. "This one might be sealed."
Neji activated his Byakugan. "Two-layered seal. Both dormant. But one responds to… thought?"
Sakura blinked. "Wait. You're telling me this door opens if you think hard enough?"
"Not exactly," Neji said. "It's… a philosophical lock."
Naruto and Sakura exchanged glances.
"Orochimaru put a riddle on his bedroom door?" Sakura asked.
"He put a chakra-keyed seal that activates when a specific neural pattern resonates," Neji clarified. "Essentially… yes."
Naruto sighed. "Of course he did."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Let me guess: 'Only those who embrace the serpent within may enter.' What a drama queen."
They laughed—quietly, but it cut the weight in the air.
Then, Naruto reached forward, and the seal shimmered as it recognized something in him—maybe his familiarity with Orochimaru's energy signature. The door creaked open.
Inside was a chamber that felt untouched by time.
Scrolls filled lacquered cases. A low bed sat beneath a canopy of purple cloth. A mirror hung crooked on the wall, next to a rusted kunai embedded into the wood—a mark of rage, maybe. Or something more calculated.
Sakura stepped inside first. Her fingers danced across the books. "Gods, it's like he curated his own museum of isolation."
Neji found a paper tucked under the pillow. He unfolded it. Blank.
Naruto stood at the far corner, looking at the single thing mounted on the far wall—a small glass display case.
Inside?
A feather.
Perfectly preserved. Pale gray, almost white.
None of them said anything.
They didn't need to.
Whatever Orochimaru had hidden here, it wasn't just science. It was memory. Perhaps regret.
Perhaps not.
Naruto's voice was soft as they turned back to the hallway. "We move to the next wing. If this is how he lived… I wonder how he thought."
Sakura cracked a smirk. "If I had to guess? 'No one understands me and I'm smarter than all of you.'"
Neji nodded, deadpan. "Seems accurate."
They moved on.
They passed another branching hallway—wider, darker, untouched.
Neji glanced toward it briefly. "That leads to the old training chamber. Empty. No traps, no records."
Naruto barely spared it a glance. "Nothing worth checking."
Sakura muttered under her breath, "Figures. He never trained anyone normally."
They continued without slowing.
---
The trio moved from Orochimaru's personal quarters into a narrow side corridor that branched off awkwardly, half-collapsed on one end. Dust clung to the corners like cobwebs, and what remained of the room's furniture was too ordinary for a place as infamous as this. A storage space, maybe. Or a forgotten archive.
Sakura trailed behind the others, her fingers idly brushing against the edges of a mostly intact shelf nestled near the wall. Between the decayed bindings and scattered scrolls, she noticed a thick wooden bookstand wedged among the clutter—angular and plain, almost too plain. The wood wasn't rotted. It didn't even gather dust like the others.
She squinted. "Hey, weird. This thing's not falling apart like the rest of the junk."
Neji turned his head. "What is it?"
Sakura pulled it free with a soft grunt, cradling the weight of the stone tablet in her arms as she carried it toward the better light.
The slab wasn't large, but heavy—mounted onto a finely carved wooden frame, the edges etched with precise, almost mathematical patterns.
Its surface bore a series of slender, flowing symbols, arranged in ordered lines.
Not chakra etchings. Not Dominion sigils. Something else—deliberate, elegant, almost scholarly.
There was no oppressive air about it. No creeping nausea.
Just the quiet weight of something meant to be read, not feared.
Sakura tilted her head, scanning the foreign script without reaction, brow furrowed more from curiosity than discomfort.
"I mean, look at this. Definitely not your average scroll holder," she muttered, turning the tablet in her hands. "But still... not exactly screaming 'top secret.' Kinda dull."
Naruto glanced at her, noting how casually she held the thing—how she scanned the script without a flinch, without the recoil she'd shown moments ago at the Dominion sigil.
Naruto stepped in beside her, glancing over her shoulder at the faint markings carved across the surface.
Then his eyes narrowed.
His lips moved.
"The Custodians of Uncertainty."
Sakura blinked. "Okay. Wait. Back up. What?"
Naruto straightened. "It's what's written here. On the top. Like a title."
Sakura gave a sideways glance. "You can read that?"
Naruto looked genuinely confused. "You… can't?"
"Nuh uh," she said with a slow shake of her head. "Looks like chicken scratch to me. Snake?"
Neji stepped closer. His pale eyes scanned the carvings for a beat. "The script's unfamiliar. It's not rooted in any elemental nation dialect. And it doesn't resonate with chakra."
"That's… odd," Naruto muttered.
His hand instinctively brushed along the edge of the stone as he slipped inward, to the silence where the beast waited.
'Kurama.'
Laughter answered. Low and cruel.
'You've found it, have you?'
'What is this?'
'A mirror of your reflection.'
'That's not an answer.'
'It's the only one you're getting, boy. You don't even know what's carved into your own skin.'
Naruto clenched his jaw.
'Then tell me.'
'Ask your daddy—oh wait. He's dead!!'
The laughter echoed and faded.
Naruto exhaled and stepped back from the tablet.
"What's wrong?" Sakura asked, noticing the change in his face.
"Nothing," he said. "Just... thinking."
He gave the tablet another long look. "We'll bring it back. Lock it away. I don't want it touched until I've had a chance to review it."
Neji raised an eyebrow. "You think it's dangerous?"
"I think," Naruto said, "it's not supposed to be found."
Sakura stared at it again, then shrugged. "Still looks like a glorified book holder. I'm telling you, Orochimaru was just an eggheaded introvert. Probably the type who never got invited to parties."
Naruto smirked faintly. "He threw his own parties. With snakes."
She rolled her eyes. "Worse."
The moment passed, but the tablet remained—quiet and ancient. The kind of thing most would miss. The kind of thing that waits, knowing someone eventually will not.
---
The door was built into the wall so seamlessly that if not for the faint shimmer of residual chakra, they might have missed it entirely. The stone was the same gray-black material as the corridor itself—fused into the architecture, with only a faint arc traced across the floor marking its boundary.
Neji's Byakugan flared.
"There's something here," he said quietly. "But it's not chakra-based. Not fully."
Naruto stepped forward and laid a hand against the surface. He felt no resistance. No pulse. Just... cold. Dead.
"I've seen this before," he murmured. "During a mission near the Land of Valleys. One of Orochimaru's satellite outposts. The seal looked similar, but that one reacted to sound."
Neji stepped beside him, studying the lines. "This one's more complex. It's a layered construct. Chakra's only the outermost shell."
"So what's underneath?" Sakura asked, twirling a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Some kind of puzzle box?"
"Not exactly." Neji traced one of the patterns along the wall. "It's... logical. Not spiritual. No mantras. No prayers. This wasn't made to repel—it's made to test."
Sakura tilted her head. "Test what?"
Naruto frowned. "Not strength. Not chakra signature. It's something else."
A pause.
Then he took out the small notebook he always kept tucked inside his inner coat, flipping through field logs until he stopped at a sketch—one drawn years ago from a failed attempt to breach a similar site.
He glanced at Neji. "Remember that temple near the old Lightning border? The one that fried that Kumo operative who tried to brute-force his way in?"
Neji nodded. "His blood cooked inside his body."
"That seal," Naruto said, pointing to a symbol. "Looks like this one. It responded to a verbal input."
"You're suggesting it's a riddle?" Sakura asked.
Naruto shrugged. "Or a philosophical prompt. Something meant to filter based on thought, not power."
Sakura gave him a deadpan look. "Seriously? That's such an Orochimaru thing. A door that wants you to write an essay."
Neji stepped forward and reached for a slightly raised node along the seal—a single line that jutted out like the hilt of a blade half-buried in stone.
The moment his finger touched it, the door pulsed faintly.
Words began to emerge—not carved, but rising slowly, as if bleeding through the stone from some hidden layer beneath.
The script wasn't of the elemental nations; no clan cipher, no shinobi code.
And yet… the curves, the symmetry of the lines—they mirrored the patterns on the stone tablet Sakura had uncovered earlier.
Something about them felt close. Too close.
Like a tune half-remembered or a dream slipping away.
Naruto's eyes narrowed, the weight of familiarity pressing at the edge of his mind.
"When truth no longer binds loyalty, what does a man serve?"
The air went still.
Sakura shook her head, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
"You know, Naruto… sometimes I forget how many surprises you're hiding under that deadpan face. What else have you been keeping from me?"
Naruto kept his gaze ahead, lips twitching faintly.
"No idea. Maybe all the beatings I took growing up knocked something loose."
Then he glanced at her, voice lighter.
"You know… courtesy of a certain little idiot."
Sakura snorted, unable to hide her laugh.
"Yeah? You deserved half of them."
For a moment, the weight in the room felt lighter.
Neji cleared his throat, stepping back slightly.
"Apologies for interrupting," he said evenly. "But it's still waiting for an answer."
The levity faded, tension slipping back into the room like a shadow.
Naruto looked between them.
"Don't guess," he said. "If this is like the others, the wrong answer won't lock the door... it'll trigger a fail-safe."
Sakura whistled. "Knew I should've brought my essay scroll."
Neji smirked faintly. "It's philosophical. Designed for thinkers."
Naruto's face was unreadable. "Which means it's not really about the truth."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Then what?"
Naruto took a step toward the door. His voice was calm. Measured.
"Choice."
He said the word like an offering.
The door didn't move. But the seal shuddered.
Then, slowly—like the creak of an ancient spine—it began to open.
The dust that poured out smelled like age and ozone. The lights inside flickered to life on their own, cold white and faintly green. Another hallway stretched ahead—lined with doors on either side. Unmarked. Featureless. Silent.
Naruto stepped inside first, blade hand twitching instinctively.
Behind him, Sakura whispered, "Okay... egghead introvert or not, this guy really liked being dramatic."
---
The chamber wasn't locked, but it felt forbidden. The seal at the door had dissolved upon touch, as if recognizing Orochimaru's residual chakra in the chain that Naruto now carried at his hip.
Inside, the room was wide, low-ceilinged, and filled with a kind of organized chaos—shelving units lined the walls, some stacked with labeled jars, others packed with scrolls, dried reagents, wire-bound books. There was a workbench in the center, rusted but undisturbed, surrounded by cracked screens and devices even Neji couldn't identify.
But at the far end, recessed into the wall behind a thin curtain of dust-laced chakra mist, was a small altar-like console. Unlike the rest, it wasn't shinobi make. Its surface gleamed coldly beneath Naruto's gloved hand as he brushed the panel open.
A low chime sounded, followed by a short hiss of static.
And then, a voice.
"Hm. Testing—yes... this one should stay intact."
"Well then... this is strange. Speaking to myself, I mean. Perhaps it's a habit I should've formed earlier—would've spared me a few monologues."
[He chuckles, soft and tired.]
"It's tomorrow, isn't it? The day I explain everything. To them."
The air in the room shifted. The chakra mist stirred.
Orochimaru's voice continued—slow, calm, unmasked.
"Kabuto will pretend to take it in stride. He'll nod, maybe adjust his glasses, and then find some way to rationalize it all. He was always good at absorbing contradiction. Maybe too good."
"And Sasuke... he won't say anything. Not at first. But that silence will be loud, won't it? I've taught him too well to suppress his questions until the silence itself becomes an answer."
"They both deserve more than I've given. I used them—I used everyone, let's be honest—but those two stayed. Even when they didn't understand me."
[There's a pause, a breath, long and full.]
"I'm not running. That's important. This isn't another scheme. I've spent too long reshaping the world like it was a stone on a lathe. Time to let the world reshape me."
Naruto stood still, shoulders tight beneath his coat. Sakura had moved closer, no longer speaking. Neji stood off to the side, his pale eyes narrowed—not out of suspicion, but thought.
"The Land of Freedom. That's where I'm going. It's noisy. Crude. But brilliant in its chaos. They don't understand chakra, but they understand motion, structure, change. I'll fit in there... as well as I fit anywhere."
"I submitted the last of my research papers last month. Under my own name, this time. No masks. No false sender.
It felt… strange. Like handing off a piece of myself I'd kept buried for too long. But they accepted me—Orochimaru, of all people. A research professor. Imagine that.
Me, standing in front of wide-eyed engineers, lecturing about something as mundane as etheric convergence and chakra degeneration.
Maybe I'll learn to enjoy coffee. Or steam. Or people who speak without whispering."
[Another soft laugh, this one heavier.]
"There's still guilt, you know. Not for the ambition. Never for that. But for the pieces of myself I carved out of others. For the truths I unearthed through pain. If they hate me, I'll understand."
"But... if they carry even a sliver of what I gave them—curiosity, defiance, wonder—then maybe I did something right."
Another pause. Then:
"If you're listening to this... you weren't meant to. But maybe that's fitting. My life was never private. Only misunderstood."
"This is my final note. My last silence before the wind changes."
The static returned, swallowing the voice like it had never existed.
No one spoke.
Sakura turned first, eyes distant.
"I never thought... he'd sound like that," she said, voice too small for the room.
Naruto let his gaze drop to the console. "I thought he was a madman. But that wasn't madness."
"Conviction," Neji murmured. "The kind that makes you dangerous. Or... noble."
Naruto exhaled slowly. "Both, maybe."
The chakra mist dissipated as the console's faint light blinked out.
And just like that, Orochimaru was gone again.
Not in shadow.
Not in venom.
But in echo.
---
The silence that followed Orochimaru's last words was dense—real, like the gravity had changed in the room.
Sakura leaned back against one of the support beams, arms folded loosely beneath her chest—a posture she often defaulted to when trying to look composed but was clearly thinking too hard. Her gaze lingered on the floor, lost in whatever storm brewed behind her eyes.
Then, with a blink and a soft scoff, she looked up and muttered, "What the hell is the Land of Freedom?"
Naruto didn't answer right away. He stood with his hands resting on his coat's collar, as if bracing for wind that never came.
"I've never heard of it," Sakura added. "Not in any file. Not in any map. Not even in mission briefings."
Naruto exhaled through his nose. "There's no record of it. At least... not one we're cleared to see."
Sakura tilted her head, suspicious. "So it does exist?"
Naruto gave a small shrug. "Based on what he said? It's real. But it doesn't sound like anything in this world."
Neji had been quiet, unusually so. He stood a few paces away, one hand resting on his hip, the other gently brushing a cracked diagram of a chakra circuit on the wall.
He finally spoke. "Noisy, and crude. Their understanding doesn't come from chakra either."
"Exactly," Naruto nodded. "It's like they evolved in another direction entirely."
Sakura narrowed her eyes. "So if it's not chakra then what? Are there whole civilizations out there we've never heard of?"
She straightened from the beam, her voice rising slightly—not in anger, but in unease.
"Are we living a lie, Fox? Is this world... smaller than we thought? Or maybe too big to keep track of? Are we just frogs in a well?"
Naruto didn't respond.
"Do you—do the Anbu—know more?" she pressed. "Do you keep things from everyone else? Like, on purpose?"
Neji turned slightly toward Naruto, adding, "Are there truths you're protecting... or hiding?"
Naruto met their eyes—first Sakura's, then Neji's.
He didn't blink.
"I don't have all the answers," he said evenly. "But if what Orochimaru said is true, then yeah. Maybe we've been standing on the tip of something massive."
Sakura's stare didn't waver.
"But," Naruto continued, his voice firmer now, "there's a reason intel gets filtered. You think truth sets people free? It doesn't. Not always. Some truths just tear things apart."
"You sound like Danzo," Neji said coldly.
"No," Naruto replied. "Danzo weaponized secrecy. I'm telling you that information—raw, unfiltered—can destabilize nations. People need context. Time. Filters. If you dump the whole truth into the world without preparation, all you create is chaos."
He stepped past them slowly, looking down the corridor of the hideout like it was suddenly longer than before.
"The snake might've found freedom," he said quietly. "But we're still here. And this place? This world? It's held together by threads. You start cutting them without a plan... and you'll unravel everything."
Sakura lowered her gaze, her earlier spark dimming into contemplation. "So we keep walking in the dark?"
"No," Naruto said, turning back to face them. "We bring a lantern. Not a wildfire."
Neji nodded slightly, finally understanding.
"Then we proceed carefully," he said.
Naruto gave a short nod. "We keep our eyes open. But we don't share what we don't understand."
Sakura ran a hand through her hair, exhaling slowly. "Fine. But when I find out what the hell that machine country is actually called, I'm so writing a report about it."
"Keep it under ten pages," Naruto muttered dryly.
"I'll use drawings," Sakura smirked.
They moved on, deeper into the hideout—together, though the air between them had changed. The world had grown bigger.
And none of them could unsee it now.
---
The door before them hissed as the seal weakened—its chakra signature unraveling strand by strand under Neji's careful manipulation.
With a final crackle of static, the entrance sighed open.
Inside, rows of cylindrical glass tanks lined the walls, filled not with fluid but with thick, shimmering air—dustless, suspended like an artificial stillness. Each tank contained something different: preserved tongues, rows of teeth, segmented vocal cords suspended like puppeteer strings.
Sakura stepped in first, heels clicking faintly against the metal floor.
"Alright... ew," she muttered, already tugging her fingerless glove tighter. "Didn't expect Orochimaru's kink room to be this articulate."
Naruto didn't comment. He was already studying the labels burned into the steel plates beneath the tanks. Some were marked in standard shinobi script. Others were carved with sharp, angular glyphs that none of them recognized.
Neji circled one of the tanks. "Vocal systems. Across species."
"Not just humans," Naruto confirmed. "Birds. Frogs. Even that one—" he pointed, "—looks like it belonged to a mimic octopus."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "So what's the takeaway here? He wanted to imitate people better?"
Neji's eyes narrowed. "Or infiltrate. Think of the strategic value—duplicating voiceprints. Replicating commands. Impressions that fool even chakra-based recognition."
Naruto, still crouched by a terminal, tapped a small playback module. A distorted voice crackled to life—first in guttural growls, then transitioning slowly into perfect, clean syllables of the Fire Country dialect.
"…the sky in morning sings… but the night carries truth…"
Sakura blinked. "Creepy poem."
Naruto didn't respond. He reached toward one of the sealed drawers below the tanks. It slid open with a hiss.
Inside were scrolls. Folded diagrams. And a single black case bound in worn thread. He opened it carefully.
Dozens of transparent mouthpieces.
Each one shaped slightly differently—as if molded to different species.
"What was he doing?" Sakura asked, voice dropping slightly.
Naruto looked up at her.
"Teaching himself to speak languages we don't know yet."
Neji exhaled. "Prepping for contact."
Sakura's face twisted in disbelief. "So what, he was planning to talk to who exactly? Snake gods? Weird frog cults? People from the future?"
Naruto stayed silent.
Naruto didn't answer right away. He stepped further into the room, scanning the array of bizarre instruments: glass domes linked by thin copper filaments, crystal fragments suspended midair, and a rotating bronze structure that faintly hummed like it remembered a voice that no longer echoed.
"It's not like this room was hidden," he muttered.
Neji nodded, eyeing the threshold behind them. "The seal was basic. Masked, yes, but not buried. Anyone who was looking for something would've found it."
Sakura glanced between them. "So… Sasuke and Kabuto never saw this?"
""They were here," Naruto murmured, voice distant in thought. "But not in this room."
His gaze traced the faint scuff marks on the floor, the disturbed layer of dust.
"They walked these halls. Picked over the pieces they thought mattered."
"Which one do you think?" Sakura asked, voice softer now.
Naruto shook his head. "They only took what made sense to them. The rest? They left it to rot."
He circled the room, stopping at the pillar with the old emitter. A series of concentric rings carved with unfamiliar glyphs rotated lazily in place.
"Sound-based," Neji murmured. "Patterned frequencies—possibly mimetic in nature."
"You mean… a mimic machine?" Sakura tilted her head.
"Not just mimicry," Naruto said, his voice grim. "Replication. Matching the exact vocal harmonics of a target language… even if you've never heard it before."
A long silence settled between them.
Sakura crossed her arms. "So Orochimaru learned to speak with the outsiders using this thing?"
"Or learned enough to get through," Naruto replied. "If you can produce a sound they understand… doesn't matter if you understand it yourself. That's how initial contact works."
"Why wouldn't Sasuke be interested in that?" Neji asked aloud, half to himself.
Naruto answered quietly, "Maybe he didn't see it as the truth. Just a tool. A machine without a soul."
The machine pulsed faintly in the dim light, like it had just heard its name spoken for the first time in years.
---
The moment Naruto tapped the mechanism, the seal circle at the center of the table shimmered faintly, and a static pulse hummed through the floor. A second later, an old phonograph-like device hidden within the alcove clicked to life, crackling.
For a heartbeat, there was only white noise—then the sound leveled, and two voices emerged from the recording.
The first voice was unmistakable. Orochimaru's low, serpentine tone, but less performative than usual. Conversational. Relaxed.
The second voice, however, was alien. Human, but with a cadence unlike anything native to the Shinobi Nations—smooth, precise, but strangely melodic.
"—Ah, so you do speak our tongue fluently," Orochimaru was saying.
The other voice chuckled lightly. "It would be impolite to trade without understanding my counterpart, wouldn't it? Besides, language is merely structure. The meaning is in the void between."
Sakura squinted at the device. "Who the hell talks like that?"
Naruto stayed silent, his eyes narrowing.
Then, Orochimaru's voice again: "That may be, but I would prefer you use your native speech. For study purposes."
A pause. The merchant's voice shifted subtly, words becoming layered and tonal—foreign. Almost musical.
"Zharae'm veest nualé, shour'ken vel Aetheris…"
The words echoed strangely in the chamber, carrying a texture Naruto couldn't quite place—but something in his chest stirred faintly at the sound.
The conversation continued.
Their voices drifted between shallow topics at first—trade agreements, rare inks and metals, the price of silk conduits, weather reports from distant ports.
Only Naruto seemed able to follow the thread.
But then, the tone shifted.
Orochimaru's voice, thoughtful: "You're curious, aren't you? Why I seek passage elsewhere instead of remaining here, in this fractured Shinobi world?"
The merchant replied calmly, almost amused: "Curious indeed. Why not return with me? Your kind is not unknown to us. The lineage of Meanhynd Neamhaize has long been honored in Aetheris. Your people call him Minato Namikaze, do they not?"
Naruto's heart jumped.
Orochimaru gave a quiet laugh. "That is precisely why. You've already adapted. Already bent this world's power into your own weave. There is little left for me to teach you—or for me to learn without being filtered through your structure."
"And so you go to the Land of Freedom," the merchant mused. "To sow seeds where no soil has been tilled."
"Not just to sow," Orochimaru replied softly. "To understand how knowledge grows without the curse of familiarity. To build something outside this endless cycle of power, bloodlines, and broken children."
There was a long pause in the recording. The merchant finally spoke again, quieter now.
"You Shinobi call yourselves monsters," he said. "But you are not the only ones who wear chains. Some are simply better gilded."
The recording clicked once more, ending abruptly.
Silence lingered in the chamber, heavier now. Sakura's eyes remained locked on the device.
"…That was…" she started but faltered.
Naruto's brow furrowed, but he said nothing, staring at the old phonograph.
Neji's voice broke the silence, quiet but firm. "That… language wasn't from here."
Naruto's throat tightened. "No," he murmured. "It wasn't."
Sakura folded her arms, forcing a smirk. "Guess even that creep had pen pals."
But even she couldn't hide how unsettled she was.
---
The audio crackled to an end, the soft reverb of the merchant's laughter fading like a whisper against the damp concrete walls. As the last syllable dissolved into silence, the air felt heavier—thick with the weight of something unspoken.
Sakura was the first to speak, her voice cutting the silence. "So... What the hell was that language?"
She glanced sideways at Neji, but he shook his head wordlessly. It was the kind of shake that carried an admission—not just of ignorance, but discomfort.
"I couldn't understand a single word after the first few lines," Neji murmured. "Some foreign dialect?"
Sakura crossed her arms, eyes narrowed. "That wasn't a dialect. That was something else."
Naruto hadn't moved. He was still facing the old audio terminal, gaze distant—like a man who'd stumbled upon something that didn't belong in the world he thought he knew.
He murmured something under his breath, so softly it almost went unnoticed.
"…Zhare'm thul véna."
(by the holiest of flame)
The words felt alien even to his own ears, fluid and sharp at once. But in the pit of his stomach, something shifted—like an old door creaking open.
Sakura blinked. "What?"
Naruto's eyes widened faintly as he realized what had left his lips.
"That phrase," Neji said slowly, looking at him. "You said it like… like you've said it before."
Naruto exhaled sharply, forcing a neutral tone back into his voice. "It's nothing. Just… something I've heard."
But Sakura wasn't buying it. "Don't give me that. That sounded exactly like what this weird merchant said."
Naruto looked away, jaw tensing. "It was Aetherian."
Both of them stared at him.
Neji was the one to voice it. "And you understand that language?"
Naruto hesitated, the weight of a dozen buried truths pressing on his shoulders. "Apparently."
Sakura's brow furrowed, her earlier snark replaced by something deeper, sharper. "Since when?"
"I don't know," Naruto admitted. "But… it felt natural."
There was a brief, heavy silence. The sound of distant wind pressing against the sealed lab, the faint electric buzz of abandoned equipment.
Sakura shifted her weight, arms folding beneath her chest as she kept her eyes on him.
"You're telling me you've been speaking some lost foreign language all this time and just… never thought to mention it?"
Naruto's gaze remained on the ground. "It's not something I ever noticed. It just... slips out."
Sakura let out a short, humorless laugh. "Right. Like muscle memory for words you shouldn't know."
She took a step closer, voice dropping.
"You know, Naruto… you've always been full of surprises. But this?" She tilted her head slightly, eyes sharp now.
"You're starting to make me wonder how many things you're hiding under that mask."
Naruto glanced at her, the corner of his mouth twitching into something almost like a smile—but there was no warmth behind it.
"If I told you everything, you wouldn't believe me."
Before Sakura could push further, Neji's voice cut through, calm but edged.
"Enough games."
He stood straighter, gaze steady on Naruto.
"If there's something else you haven't told us, now is the time."
Naruto return gaze at him. "I don't know everything. I never did, Snake"
Sakura snorted faintly, trying to lighten the weight in the room. "Well, that's comforting."
But her eyes lingered on him, her smile thin, thoughtful.
The recording—its philosophy, its subtle truth—still echoed in all three of them.
The fact that Naruto understood it effortlessly, and they couldn't even parse the sound, lodged itself like a splinter under their skin.
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Naruto turned back toward the door leading deeper into the lab. His voice, when it came, was quieter—but firmer.
"Let's just move. There's still more about this place."
And they followed, the faint taste of foreign words lingering on their ears.
---
'Clear enough for you boy?'
Kurama's voice slithered in Naruto's mind, rough yet edged with something else—something uneasy.
'Speaking in riddles from some forgotten sky, as if you're better than us mongrels down here.'
He laughed, low and sharp, but it faltered halfway.
'Hah… Even I've lived longer than most gods, brat. But that tongue of yours? That place? It's not from this earth. I don't like it.'
Naruto's brow twitched faintly as he walked, tuning Kurama out.
'Don't get too excited,'
Kurama added, tone dipping toward mockery again, though the nervous undercurrent remained.
'Your blood, your chakra, that thread buried deep in your bones… they were never fully yours. You're stitched together by things older and deeper than this world, and you don't even know it.'
Naruto's lips pressed into a thin line, but he said nothing.
The beast's words clung to the back of his mind like a burr, itching and insistent as they descended deeper into the unknown.
---
The third seal collapsed in a muted flash, chakra threads unraveling like brittle silk. Unlike the intricate locks before, this one felt half-finished—almost like Orochimaru himself wasn't sure if it was worth securing.
Naruto stepped in first, Neji and Sakura trailing behind.
A low pulse hummed through the air.
The chamber beyond was cluttered, messy in a way that bordered on chaotic genius. Scrolls, pinned papers, and unfinished diagrams littered the walls. But at the center of the room…
A chakra bubble glowed faintly—containing a kneeling figure.
A perfectly sculpted, nude Tsunade clone slumped over, moving rhythmically in a suspiciously self-pleasuring manner.
There was a long silence.
Sakura blinked, deadpan. "What the actual hell is this?"
Neji turned on his heel immediately, face blank, but Naruto raised a hand to stop him.
"Wait," Naruto said calmly, almost scholarly. "Neji… I'm a thinking man."
Neji paused, suspicion flashing across his features.
"…Yes?"
Naruto took a thoughtful step closer, studying the clone like it was some preserved specimen.
"Would you say this model accurately represents the real person?"
Neji exhaled through his nose—sharp, but to Sakura's horror, he humored him.
"Well…" Neji tilted his head slightly. "The proportions seem… exaggerated. But without anatomical reference, it's hard to say."
Naruto folded his arms, nodding seriously.
"True. Though, judging by the craftsmanship, I'd say the creator was aiming more for… idealization than replication."
Neji nodded once. "A fantasy projection."
Sakura stared at them, slack-jawed.
Without warning, she stomped forward and slammed their foreheads together with a sharp clack.
"You dick-for-brains creeps!" she snapped, half-sharp, half-laughing. "We're on a mission! Not a damn porn exhibit tour!"
Both men winced, rubbing their temples.
Neji muttered, "I was simply engaging in a hypothetical analysis…"
"Yeah?" Sakura growled, spinning toward Naruto. "And you, genius?"
Naruto offered a half-hearted shrug. "Just curious about the craftsmanship."
Sakura exhaled loudly, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I swear to all the gods, one of these days, I'm gonna kill you both."
She approached the scroll panel on the wall, reading the note pinned beside it:
'Project Viability: Self-Sustaining Clone Reflex Study – Revision 7'
A long, exasperated groan left her lips.
"Unbelievable. The snake bastard built his own sex doll based on....granny. And protected it with a forbidden seal."
Naruto walked to the bubble, raising a hand. "Let's put this poor thing out of its misery."
With a pulse of chakra, the clone dispersed like mist, leaving behind a faint, sad emptiness.
Neji cleared his throat awkwardly. "Do you think Sasuke and Kabuto knew about this?"
Naruto shook his head.
"If they did, I doubt they'd ever bring it up—if we ever cross paths."
Sakura crossed her arms. "Honestly? I think they did. And like us, they probably wished they could bleach it from their brains."
Sakura crossed her arms, exhaling sharply. "Honestly? I think they did. And like us, they probably wished they could bleach it from their brains."
Naruto and Neji exchanged a brief glance—silent, but unmistakably knowing.
Sakura caught it immediately, narrowing her eyes.
"Oh, for god's sake."
She jabbed a thumb toward the now empty chamber. "Don't tell me you two are actually impressed."
Naruto's mouth twitched faintly, but he said nothing. Neji, as usual, remained stoic—but the corner of his eye betrayed him.
Sakura rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath as she walked ahead.
"Boys."
She glanced at the clutter of absurd research pinned to the walls—scrolls titled things like:
'Feasibility Study: Can a Goose Lay a Golden Egg?'
'Shadow Clone Reproductive Potential: Ethical Considerations'
Her lips quirked despite herself.
"Snake bastard wasn't just dangerous," she murmured. "He was lonely."
Naruto nodded faintly, his voice softer now. "Even monsters need something to laugh at."
Neji exhaled, shaking his head. "Or someone to talk to."
They lingered a moment longer before Naruto gestured to the door.
"One more seal."
As they turned away, Sakura threw one last look over her shoulder, rolling her eyes.
"Farewell, you perverted genius."
---
The final sealed chamber opened with a hollow groan, stone grinding against stone. No complex jutsu arrays. No sensory tricks. Just weight, effort, and deliberate design.
The air inside was still—sterile. Dust lingered undisturbed in the corners. At first glance, the room seemed bare: a stone table, three chairs pulled close around it, and a few loose pages scattered like forgotten scraps.
Sakura's lips curled slightly. "Okay. This one's almost disappointing."
Naruto said nothing, but his eyes swept over everything methodically. He moved toward the far wall, something catching his attention.
Neji's gaze sharpened alongside his. "There," he said, pointing.
Across the smooth stone, faint scorch marks stretched outward, blackened streaks radiating from a single point like an explosion held in pause.
Naruto crouched down near the base of the wall. His gloved hand brushed over the stone floor—over the small, cylindrical objects scattered in an untidy cluster.
Four metallic cylinders.
He picked one up, turning it slowly between his fingers, frowning at the perfectly machined shape, the engraved notches around its rim.
Sakura knelt beside him, peering over his shoulder. "Is that what I think it is?"
Neji approached, eyes tracking the impact marks across the wall. "The pattern matches."
Naruto let the cylinder drop back with a faint clink. "Yes. Seems to be fired from the one weapon." he paused, still analyzing the cylinder "Projectile-based. More advanced unlike anything in Shinobi world"
Sakura's brow furrowed as she glanced around the table, the chairs, the disturbance.
"So this was it," she murmured. "This was where he ended it all."
Neji nodded once, moving around to the table. "Orochimaru's final meeting with them."
They stood in silence for a moment, each tracing the scene in their minds.
The clues were all here:
The chairs drawn close.
The disorganized papers, one of which had a faint ring mark from a cup.
The four cylinders—three discarded toward the wall, one left near the table.
Scorch marks etched into the stone like black tattoos.
Naruto spoke quietly. "He demonstrated the weapon here. To them."
Sakura crossed her arms, expression clouded. "A farewell gift."
"Or a lesson," Neji added.
Naruto's gaze drifted to the table. His hand brushed across the dust, stopping at a clean, scroll-shaped rectangle in the center. No dust, no debris. Whatever had been here was important—and taken deliberately.
Sakura's eyes followed his hand. "scroll?."
Neji glanced at her. "Most likely a map due to its larger size."
They all knew.
Naruto straightened, slipping his hand back into his coat. "And the other documents. Whatever they were"
"All gone," Sakura muttered, voice lighter but hollow. "Of course."
Neji scanned the wall one more time. "The scorch marks weren't random," he said. "The angle of fire. The spread. He wanted to show them something, not harm."
Naruto's expression darkened slightly. "A demonstration. A message."
Sakura shook her head, smiling bitterly. "You can almost hear him laughing while doing it."
Naruto walked toward the wall again, staring at the blackened stone. "This wasn't chaos. It was closure."
Neji spoke next, voice quieter than before. "So why leave the cylinders?"
Naruto didn't turn. "Because he wanted whoever came after to know. But only if they looked closely."
Sakura leaned back against the table, letting out a sharp breath. "Typical snake."
They lingered in the room a few minutes longer, tracing every last mark, every last detail.
It wasn't just debris.
It was a farewell, left like breadcrumbs.
And now they had followed it to the end.
Naruto finally stepped back, giving the room one last look. "We're done here."
Neji nodded silently.
Sakura gave a small, tired smile. "Dancer of Blood, Black Fox, and the Byakugan… following the ghost of a snake."
Naruto glanced at her. "And now the question is—what do we do with what we've found?"