The next day dawned bright and clear, the sky cloudless, and the sun shining warmly overhead.
Yet, deep underground, the laboratory remained shrouded in darkness.
Orochimaru sat beneath a flickering chandelier, golden eyes glowing as he flipped through documents related to the "Impure World Reincarnation" technique, originally developed by the Second Hokage at the Senju compound.
This forbidden jutsu—used to summon the souls of the dead and force them to fight—could be broken down into three core steps, according to Orochimaru:
1. Establishing a link to the soul in the Pure Land, using a piece of the deceased's body as a medium.
2. Creating a vessel, by using a living person as the container for that soul.
3. Controlling the reanimated body, to make it follow commands in battle.
Of these, the second step was the most technically challenging. The quality of the container determined how much of the soul's original power could be preserved. But the most critical part was the third—if the summoned entity couldn't be controlled, the entire technique would be a failure.
However, for Orochimaru, the last two steps were of little importance. He had no intention of fully performing the technique—for now, his interest was solely in the first step.
That first step, he realized, was clearly a highly advanced Summoning technique.
Under the dim light, Orochimaru licked his lips and carefully compiled all the notes related to this first step from the Second Hokage's research. He filed them into a single document, sealing the rest of the scrolls away for later.
Then he picked the document back up, reading it slowly, eyes gleaming with fascination.
In the ninja world, summoning was the most common type of space-time ninjutsu. Even someone like Guy could use it, typically to summon beasts or weapons. The basic hand signs were standard: Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram—but summoning itself had several variations depending on the medium and the summoned entity.
Blood Contracts were the most common. Using one's blood, a ninja could sign a pact with a creature and summon it when needed.
Item-Based Summons involved objects rather than creatures. Orochimaru himself could summon Multiple Rashomon as a defensive barrier. It was also said that one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist had made a contract with a special scroll that allowed them to summon the Seven Ninja Blades.
Then there were the Sacred Land Contracts—the most advanced form of summoning. Creatures from the three great Sacred Lands left traces of their chakra on unique scrolls. As long as a ninja left their blood signature on one of these scrolls, they could later summon any of the creatures who had contributed chakra to it.
This kind of contract was a more sophisticated version of a blood or item-based contract. Jiraiya's contract with Mount Myōboku was of this kind.
Orochimaru had heard that Ryūchi Cave also had similar scrolls, but he had never seen one himself. His own summoning pact with Manda and his kin was formed the traditional way—through blood, trial, and force.
He had found Ryūchi Cave himself, and defeated his summoning beasts into submission one by one. Even so, Manda, protected by the White Snake Sage, remained defiant—always demanding compensation and refusing to fight for free.
All things considered, summoning was a technique with an incredibly wide range—its limits were defined only by the user's imagination and skill. It could even be fused with sealing techniques. For instance, Minato's "Reaper Death Seal" during the Nine Tails' attack included a summoning component.
Though the categories of summoning seemed varied, they all shared one underlying principle:
Using the user's chakra as the medium to summon something across time and space.
Even this principle could be applied to ninja summoning. While most ninja lack the spiritual chakra used in classical spiritism, the sealing arts fill that gap. For a skilled seal master, imprinting a chakra signature is no issue.
However, the simplest methods are often the most difficult in practice. Take human summoning—a technique so delicate that very few in the ninja world can perform it. It requires extraordinary chakra control.
But for Orochimaru, that's not a problem. He was one of the rare few who could pull it off.
Now, by cross-referencing the summoning technique used in the Reanimation Jutsu, he had begun piecing together a more complete understanding of the Pure Land.
Days slipped by quickly.
During that time, Orochimaru developed a custom summoning technique, designed specifically to summon souls from the Pure Land, using the Second Hokage's research as his foundation.
"The next step… is testing."
After a moment of contemplation, Orochimaru pulled a scroll from his side and unsealed a corpse.
It was a discarded body—worn out, used up. He'd requested it from the intelligence division after its memories had already been drained.
Shick.
With a quick slice, Orochimaru cut a small piece of flesh from the corpse, placed it on a prepared summoning scroll, then formed the seals.
"Summoning Technique!"
Dark sealing lines spread outward from his feet. A puff of white smoke burst from the center.
As it cleared—nothing appeared.
"Failure?" Orochimaru narrowed his eyes.
From behind him, the Djinn's voice calmly replied, "No. You succeeded."
Just as the words left the Djinn's mouth, a translucent figure began to materialize in front of Orochimaru. Sharing the Djinn's spiritual vision, he could clearly see the confused expression of the summoned soul—it matched the corpse at his feet.
"Don't just stand there," the Djinn warned. "The summoning contract's power is fading. Soon, the soul will be pulled back into the Pure Land."
Orochimaru stopped observing and quickly formed new seals.
"Four Symbols Seal!"
Black lines surged across his arm as he reached out. The soul, once flickering and intangible, became bound—sealed into another prepared scroll.
Haaa…
With the sealing complete, Orochimaru exhaled deeply.
The Djinn emerged again, breaking through the seal's constraints and peered into the scroll. After a careful examination, he nodded.
"It's holding. The seal is working just as you predicted—it's cutting off the Pure Land's pull on the soul."
Orochimaru licked his lips, but showed no joy. Success was expected. With his knowledge and the Second Hokage's notes, anything less would've been a surprise.
Now came the real test.
His eyes fixed on the sealed scroll, sharp and cold.
He bit his finger, drew blood, and carved a large serpentine curse mark on the scroll's reverse side, made from his own chakra and spiritual essence.
Once the curse mark stabilized, he broke the Four Symbols Seal and re-sealed the soul inside using the curse mark instead.
Everything was now in place.
The curse mark would slowly erode the soul—until his own spiritual fragment could hitch a ride and enter the Pure Land.
What happened next would depend entirely on what he could uncover inside.
"It may sound like I'm stating the obvious," the Djinn said, clicking his tongue, "but this plan of yours is dangerously reckless."
Orochimaru had barely finished reforming the curse seal before he began splitting his own spirit again. This time, unlike before, the risks were clearer.
"The First Hokage's soul still drifts in the Pure Land. If even a small piece of your spirit falls into it, you may simply go dormant—or worse, get dissolved by its natural forces. That would mean permanent loss. Not something you can just heal from."
"When the fragment separates…" the Djinn muttered, "I'll consider it lost."
But Orochimaru only glanced at him with calm, merciless eyes.
"If it gives me the answers I seek," he said, lips curling into a cold smile, "then it's worth the price."
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