The scene inside the room was something out of a nightmare.
Harsh lighting illuminated a blood-stained operating table at the center of the chamber. A corpse lay on top of it, pale and waxy, chest cavity opened to expose organs that glistened wetly under the lights. The body had been dead for hours at least, maybe days. Hard to tell with the preservation seals Kenji could see etched into the metal surface.
The walls were lined floor to ceiling with glass containers. Organs floating in pale green nutrient solution. Tissue samples suspended in clear fluid. Some of the specimens looked fresh. Others were clearly experimental failures, the flesh blackened or distorted in ways that defied natural biology.
Several containers had shattered when the door exploded inward. The nutrient solution was now spreading across the floor in slow-moving pools, carrying fragments of whatever had been preserved inside. The smell hit him a moment later. Scrolls had been knocked from their shelves, scattered across the floor and soaking in the spilled fluids. Research notes, probably. Documentation of whatever sick experiments Orochimaru had been conducting down here.
The Sannin himself stood near the far wall, having barely dodged the flying debris from Kenji's explosive entry. His snake-like pupils locked onto Kenji as the dust settled, but there was no panic in that face. Instead, a strange smile curled at the corners of his lips.
"So I've been discovered after all. And so quickly too."
He tilted his head slightly.
"You came alone? How bold. Though I suppose you're confident in your abilities, Kenji. I've seen those Wood Release puppets you created. Truly genius work. The craftsmanship alone was remarkable, but the chakra efficiency was what really impressed me."
Kenji had barely interacted with Orochimaru since the end of the Second Great Ninja War. Seeing him now, up close, the changes were obvious. The sinister aura that had always clung to the man had intensified. He radiated danger like a coiled viper, ready to strike at any moment.
"Thanks for the compliment. But I don't need backup to deal with you."
His wrist flicked.
Three kunai flew out in a triangular formation, aimed directly at Orochimaru's chest. Standard attack, nothing fancy. Just testing the response time.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
Orochimaru's hands blurred through seals. A violent gust of wind erupted from his palms, not just deflecting the kunai but filling the entire room with sharp wind blades. The invisible cutting edges tore through everything they touched. Bookshelves split apart, wood splintering. The remaining glass containers exploded. The operating table was sliced clean in half, the corpse on top sliding apart.
Within seconds, the room had been reduced to chaos.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
Kenji slammed both hands against the floor. Chakra flooded downward and the ground responded, a thick earthen barrier erupting upward in front of him. The wind blades crashed against it, carving deep grooves across the surface but failing to break through.
As the wind technique died down, Orochimaru began forming new seals for a follow-up attack.
Then every hair on his body stood on end.
Pure survival instinct took over. He threw himself sideways without conscious thought. A streak of molten metal tore through the earth wall exactly where he'd been standing.
The projectile was small, maybe the size of a bullet. The air around it shimmered with heat distortion as it crossed the room in a fraction of a second and slammed into the stone wall behind Orochimaru's previous position.
BOOM!
The molten projectile didn't just hit the wall, it melted straight through several meters of reinforced stone, creating a glowing crater that dripped liquefied rock. Heat radiated outward in waves, making the air almost painful to breathe.
The earth wall Kenji had raised shattered from the recoil of launching the attack.
Orochimaru lay flat on the ground where he'd thrown himself, staring at the still-smoking hole in the wall. His eyes had widened slightly.
That technique should have killed him. If his reflexes had been even a fraction slower, he'd be dead right now. Vaporized by whatever the hell that attack was. He started to push himself up, but his right arm screamed in protest. Looking down, he saw a deep gash running from shoulder to elbow. The skin was split open, muscle visible underneath, and blood was rapidly soaking through his sleeve. The superheated air from the projectile passing so close had flash-burned him even without direct contact.
Before he could fully process the injury, three more kunai came flying at him.
These weren't aimed straight like before. The trajectories were cunning, each one positioned to cut off different escape routes. Together they formed a cage of blades that gave him nowhere to dodge.
He ripped a kunai from his belt and managed to deflect two of the incoming weapons with sharp clanging sounds and bursts of sparks. The third one grazed his cheek, drawing blood and continuing past his head.
In that split seconds, Kenji appeared behind him.
He'd marked one of the kunai with a Flying Thunder God seal and activated it as he threw it. The instant it passed Orochimaru's position, Kenji teleported to it, snatching the weapon out of the air as he materialized.
Black markings had spread across his face. His chakra signature had exploded to nearly overwhelming levels, the pressure of it making the air feel heavy.
Their eyes met for just a moment. Orochimaru's widened in recognition of what was about to happen, while Kenji's remained unchanging.
Then Kenji's fist crashed into Orochimaru's side.
The power of Sage Mode was terrifying. Orochimaru's body folded almost in half, ribs cracking from the force of the blow. He was launched backward like he'd been hit by a cannonball, body tumbling through the air completely out of control before slamming into the far wall.
CRASH!
The wall exploded on impact. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the point of collision before the entire section collapsed inward, creating a crater several meters deep. Dust and debris filled the room, visibility dropping to almost nothing.
If the facility hadn't been reinforced with structural enhancement seals years ago, the entire place would have caved in.
Kenji stood calmly where he was. He could sense Orochimaru's chakra at the bottom of that crater. Severely injured, but still alive. Of course he was still alive. Orochimaru was notoriously hard to kill.
Before the dust had even begun to settle, movement came from the crater. A pair of hands thrust out from Orochimaru's mouth. His jaw distended at an angle that violated every principle of human anatomy, opening wider and wider until a new body began to emerge. Like a snake shedding its skin, he crawled out of his own battered form, leaving the damaged body behind like a discarded shell.
The new body was covered in viscous fluids. The sight was deeply unsettling, something fundamentally wrong about watching a person birth themselves from their own mouth.
"Cough... cough..."
He spat out mouthfuls of blood the moment he emerged. The usual composure was gone from his face, replaced by pain. His eyes locked onto Kenji.
"I never expected... that you could use the Flying Thunder God Technique," he rasped. His voice carried shock. That teleportation had completely caught him off guard. Fighting someone with that ability was a nightmare. You couldn't predict their movements.
Kenji understood immediately. At this point in the timeline, Orochimaru's body replacement technique wasn't fully developed yet. It let him shed damaged flesh to avoid fatal injuries, but it couldn't completely negate the damage. Each shedding took a toll. He'd already used it once. Maybe had one or two more in him at most before his chakra reserves ran dry.
Orochimaru was running out of options.
"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"
Dozens of snakes erupted from Orochimaru's sleeves and collar, surging toward Kenji. The serpents moved with unnatural speed and coordination, trying to overwhelm through sheer numbers. But just as the snakes were about to reach him, Kenji's figure vanished.
He reappeared directly in front of Orochimaru, his palm wrapped in chakra. The strike went straight through Orochimaru's chest, blasting a hole clean through his torso.
"You knew I could use Flying Thunder God," Kenji said quietly, withdrawing his blood-soaked hand. "And you still didn't move away from that shed body?"
He'd marked the discarded shell during the previous exchange. Orochimaru had literally left him a beacon to teleport to.
"So that's when you... placed the mark..." Orochimaru collapsed, blood pouring from his mouth.
"Stop playing dead," Kenji said. "Your chakra is crystal clear to my sensory abilities."
He suddenly drove his fist into the ground.
BOOM!
The floor shattered. Cracks spread rapidly outward as the impact sent shockwaves through the earth. The ceiling began to rain dust and small stones. And from the broken floor, a figure burst upward in a shower of dirt.
Orochimaru, trying to escape through the underground using Earth Release techniques.
The "body" with the hole through its chest crumbled into mud, revealing itself as an earth clone.
Kenji pursued like a ghost. Before Orochimaru could fully emerge from the ground, Kenji's fist connected with his face. The blow snapped Orochimaru's head to the side. Orochimaru tried to raise his arms to defend himself, but compared to the speed granted by Sage Mode, his movements looked like they were underwater. Kenji's next punch caught him in the ribs. Then another to the jaw. Then his solar plexus. Each impact was brutal, targeting vulnerable areas to maximize damage.
Orochimaru's durability was impressive. In the original timeline, he'd taken a savage beating from Tsunade and still had enough left to crack jokes afterward. But that was later, after he'd modified his body with various enhancements. Right now, his regenerative abilities were limited to what his natural physiology could handle.
After the fifth or sixth punch, Orochimaru's consciousness finally started to fade. His vision went dark as his brain shut down to protect itself from further trauma. He collapsed.
Kenji stood over the fallen Sannin. Orochimaru at this point in the timeline wasn't at his peak strength. Compared to the version that would eventually get blown away by a single explosive tag in some future encounter, lasting this long against Sage Mode was actually pretty impressive.
More importantly, the fight had served its purpose. Testing his new limbs under real combat conditions had given him the answer he needed: they could handle Sage Mode far better than before. The strain was there, but it was stable.
But impressive didn't mean successful.
He'd completed his mission. Orochimaru was captured.