The lab was cooler now. Most of the chakra saturation had drained from the air, leaving behind something sterile, medical, sharp. The silence wasn't empty—it was charged. Seals glowed faintly against the walls, their hum like the quiet breathing of a machine that had finally gone still after weeks of exertion.
I approached the vat slowly.
Gray floated upright, weightless in the solution, eyes closed, mouth relaxed. The fluid had gone translucent again, slightly tinted from residual chakra but no longer aggressive in signature. I'd long since flushed out the earlier batches—this was the last, the purest, the most refined set of my chakra stores.
And Gray had taken it all in.
Placing one hand to the control panel, I let the system run its final diagnostics. The chakra-binding seals disengaged with a faint hiss, and the containment field dimmed.
No sign of physical mutations.
Gray's body was… the same. That in itself was unnerving. I expected shifts—subtle scale deformation, increased mass, even slight morphological drift. But aside from his wounds being completely gone, he looked exactly as he had before.
Only his chakra signature was not the same.
It pulsed now with deliberate restraint, like someone holding their breath. Deep, coiled, waiting.
The monitor showed cleaner patterns. The erratic spikes from earlier in the month were gone. His network had adapted—not just tolerated my chakra, but structured itself around it.
He was more efficient.
I noted the way the chakra flow seemed to spiral differently now, tighter loops around the heart core, and less waste at the extremities. The energy didn't bleed out like it used to. It gathered, compressed, stored.
His chakra wasn't just strong—it was cooperative.
I adjusted a knob. The seals along the vat disengaged in sequence with a soft clack-clack-clack, and the lid released a faint hiss as it retracted.
Gray opened his eyes before the fluid drained fully.
No movement. Just awareness.
"Vitals?" I asked aloud, more to the lab than to him.
A clone off to the side—tasked with monitoring baseline life signs—gave a short nod. "Stable. Heart hasn't exploded."
I stepped forward as the last of the fluid poured away. Gray's body adjusted slowly.
He blinked. Then exhaled. Just once.
The entire room tensed.
"Feels… clean," Gray muttered, voice steady. "Like the air tastes different."
"That's your nervous system talking. You've likely restructured your sensory thresholds. Taste, scent, even thermal awareness might shift slightly—your synapses are adjusting to the new chakra density."
"I feel…" Gray searched for the word. "Sharp."
I wrote that down. Underlined it twice.
"Yes, that was one of the few certainties I expected—a growth in perception. One dramatic and sudden enough that you didn't just develop alongside it—you don't just feel sharp. You are sharper. Though to what extent remains to be seen."
I clicked my pen once, thoughtfully.
"Now, onto the thing we're both ignoring: any symptoms of internal discomfort? Pressure behind the eyes? Spinal pain? Sudden urges to eat something alive?"
Gray grunted. "No more than usual."
"Then you're likely past the dangerous part. Or you're about to die. Either way—data." I gestured vaguely, rolling my wrist to dismiss the thought.
Gray moved—slow, unhurried. No slither or sway—each motion was subtle, deliberate. The coils of his body didn't press or drag. They threaded. Efficient, not extravagant.
Not stronger necessarily.
But everything about him now had a sheen.
A new tension in the air around him. A presence. Somehow it made him more noticeable… dangerous. Like something just a little too still.
I walked a slow circle around him, scribbling readings into the clone's discarded ledger as I tracked internal energy flow by proximity. I noted deviations, tagged a few anomalies for follow-up, and paused when I reached his left side—where, before, his chakra had leaked slightly from a poorly healed internal wound.
That leak was gone.
That scar was gone.
His body hadn't just healed. It had corrected.
I stared at the page, frowning.
"I know summons consume a shinobi's chakra—compatibility is obviously a factor, but less so than with humans. For you lot, it's not rejection—it's more like... preferred flavor."
I flipped the page.
"Your chakra systems are built to assimilate external chakra. Multiple types, even. And your baseline for what's considered 'a lot' of chakra is already absurd compared to mine. By all known metrics, your chakra shouldn't have changed so significantly."
Gray didn't answer. Just watched me with a patience I didn't like.
He flicked his tongue once.
And then surged forward to swallow me whole.
"Come o—"
The next moment I was in a different cave, spat from his jaws like a hairball.
No lab. But plenty of snakes.
Big ones.
The air was heavier here. Older.
Ah. Ryūchi Cave.
What a lovely place.
I could already see murder in at least three sets of eyes. Four if you counted the one with a second mouth.
"Well," I muttered, brushing myself off, "guess we're doing this now."
The air tasted tainted. That was the first thing I noticed not like poison or rot, but like breath that wasn't meant for lungs. Thick with intent. Heavy with presence. Chakra hung in the air, not as mist or pressure, but as awareness. I wasn't alone. I wasn't even unnoticed.
I straightened slowly, brushing dried saliva from my sleeve with a flick, then adjusted my cuffs.
This was Ryūchi Cave.
My first time here.
I'd made a point to avoid it.
A very deliberate, very informed point. Orochimaru always insisted I wasn't ready, or more often didn't need to be here. Which was just his polite way of saying, "Don't be stupid."
So naturally, here I was, looking incredibly stupid.
My eyes adjusted quickly. There was no light source, but visibility wasn't an issue everything gleamed, like the stone itself remembered sunlight and refused to let go. Stalactites twisted into grotesque arches. Vines like veins crawled the stone. Bones were tastefully scattered.
Gray loomed behind me, coiled like a living boundary between me and everything else. He was quiet now, as if he had already said what he needed to by forcibly relocating me. And honestly, I respected that. We all communicate differently.
Movement ahead–there it was again, that rustling pressure. Shadows that didn't match the walls. Slitted pupils in the dark, unblinking. I counted 13 distinct chakra signatures in my immediate range, only four of which were visible. All of them were... watching.
No welcome.
No words.
Just cold, predatory regard.
One of the larger snakes–ash-colored, scarred across the snout–lowered itself from a ledge. Each movement-deliberate. Controlled. Regal, in the way ancient executioners are regal.
I nodded politely. "I come in peace," I said, then frowned. "No. That's not true. I came because he brought me."
Gray said nothing.
The snake slithered closer, gaze flicking between me and Gray. Its tongue tasted the air. "You are not the keeper of the contract," it rasped.
"No," I agreed, "but I am under it."
Another snake dropped down from a higher tunnel, heavier, darker. Its body dragged the dust with the sound of grinding teeth. "Your scent is wrong," it said, addressing Gray "Too much him in You."
A ripple moved through the watchers. Some form of silent consensus. Judgment. Maybe amusement.
I glanced at Gray. He had not moved. Not even blinked. He was waiting.
Which was real rude, like he obviously got some history here, but was having me speak for him as if i was his subordinate.
Oh wait I am.
Another snake's voice echoed from a crevice above—female, older, soaked in mockery. "So the little snake finally visits. Did your master not warn you? Or do his pets go where they please now?"
I didn't answer.
Because that wasn't a question. That was bait.
And I'd seen what these snakes did to things they bothered to bite.
"I don't speak for Orochimaru," I said. "But I am one of his. Which is enough to know you won't kill me, wouldn't want Orochimaru to glance your direction."
The ashen snake flicked its tongue again, coiling slowly. "Bold."
"Parinoid," I twisted my hand in a so-so gesture… which meant nothing to these danger-noodles.
"Gray," Spoke a deep-yet-feminine voice behind me.
My skin prickled. That one wasn't chakra. That was something older.
I turned.
A third snake—one vast in size. Its form shimmered through the darkness suggesting she was even larger, as if depth and mass were being interpreted on a curve. Scales the color of moonlight and blood. Eyes that pulsed like chakric whirlpools. It didn't slither so much as arrive.
Gray lowered his head, just slightly. Subtle. Respect.
I followed suit.
Because I'm not suicidal.
"You altered him," the being said, voice layered in multiple registers. "Not just healed. You rewrote. Tinkered."
"I improvised."
"And now you bring your noise here."
"Once again not my choice."
Silence.
Then, a hiss—not laughter, but the sharp exhale of one who finds something amusing in a deeply unfortunate way.
"You speak as if you understand this place."
I nodded. "No. But I'm willing to learn."
The being drew closer, coiling around itself in a slow spiral. "Willingness is not the currency we deal in, Sozo Akinori."
She knew my name.
Of course she did.
A pause.
Then something softer.
The other snakes didn't move. They were watching for something—some cue.
And then she said it.
"You may remain."
Just like that. Like a verdict.
"But you leave my territory."
My mouth opened. Then closed.
I bowed slightly. "Fair."
Gray finally stirred beside me. A deep rumble of breath. Tension left his coils.
He'd known this would happen.
And brought me anyway.
Which meant… I'd passed some test before even knowing I was taking it.
Now all I had to do was survive whatever came next.
No pressure.
Once the watchers had slithered back into their tunnels, and the great one—whatever she was—had withdrawn deeper into the dark, the air thinned just enough to be breathable again. Still thick, still ancient, but no longer clinging to my lungs like it wanted to lay eggs.
Gray and I moved into a lesser chamber. If you could call it that. Still massive. Still unnaturally quiet. The stone underfoot was warm now—subtly pulsing, as if it had veins beneath it. Maybe it did.
Once we were alone—or alone enough for the whispers to pull back—I finally spoke.
"So," I said casually, dusting off a patch of mossy scale residue before sitting down cross-legged on a smooth stone. "Just checking–those guys back there. Your pals?"
Gray didn't respond right away.
I tilted my head. "Because, I was under the impression we were besties, and yet I didn't exactly get the warm reception-"
"They are not my friends."
His tone was flat. Sharp. A cutoff blade of sound.
I blinked. "...Right."
"They tolerated me," he said, coiling nearby, eyes half-lidded, but his posture tense. "More than most. But they are not allies. They are opportunists. Traditionalists. Cowards with long memories and slow deaths."
I sighed, leaning back against a sloped piece of stone that may have once been a fang.
"Care to explain what is happening? You drag me out of my lab, you nearly eat me, you warp us to snake hell, and I get trial-by-glare from serpents with kill-aura and philosophical vendettas—why are we here, Gray?"
He turned his head slowly toward me.
"To finish it."
There it was.
"Finish what, exactly?"
"The ones who injured me. Who thought I'd stay down. Who saw weakness and moved as one to erase me from the hierarchy. Cowards, all of them. But their venom still lingers."
My fingers tapped against my thigh.
"And we're doing this now because?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Because I'm stronger. Because your chakra remade me. Because they think they succeeded—and nothing stings more than failure disguised as victory."
I stared at him for a long moment.
"...You could've just said you wanted backup."
"I didn't."
Charming.
I stood up slowly, brushing my hands together. "Alright then. Snake murder spree it is."
He rumbled low in his chest—amusement perhaps.
"Let's finish this," he said.
"After you, bestie."
I twirled the powersword in one hand as we moved, letting the weight carry the motion while the edge hummed in that satisfying, restrained way—like a predator trying very hard to be polite. It sliced through the dense cave air with a whisper of friction, arcs of static trailing faintly behind it. Elegant. Overbuilt. Dangerous. Just like me.
"Gotta say," I muttered, idly tracing a groove in the stone with the flat of the blade, "if I'm risking my precious internal organs for your vendetta, I feel like I should at least know who we're killing."
Gray didn't answer immediately.
"Because right now, I'm just swinging this thing like a bored heir with no enemies to inherit from."
Still nothing.
I sighed, pointing the blade in his direction. "Gray."
He stopped, head turning slightly, tongue flicking once.
"There were four of them," he said at last. "Snakes of the deeper coils. Older than me, not wiser. Jealous. Small. They saw what I was becoming and they struck first. Thought I'd bled out in the lower crevices."
"And now you're back. With me. Upgraded. Enhanced. Basically gift-wrapped in vengeance."
"Yes."
"Mm." I adjusted my grip. The sword felt good—better now that I'd infused the handle with a microseal web. Feedback was smoother. It wanted to be swung. "So we're going to hunt down these four petty bastards and kill them in their own cave?"
"One already died." His voice was low. "The one whose head I carried."
"Right. So three remain."
"They won't run. They think I was lucky. They don't understand what you've done to me."
I spun the blade once more, then rested it lazily across my shoulders. "Mm. I could fix that."
Gray said nothing, but the coils of his body twitched with anticipation.
"What are their names?" I asked. "Personal touch and all."
"You won't be able to pronounce them."
"Try me."
"Rasshjakk, Muth'ea, and Sienn."
I blinked. "Wow. Okay. You were right–well maybe on that last one-but not gonna try."
He grunted. "Their names are as bloated as their pride."
"And where, exactly, do they hang out when not conspiring to kill you?"
"Near the hollow pit. A nesting hollow used only by the arrogant and the dying. They believe it's sacred."
I smiled faintly, eyes narrowing. "Perfect killing on sacred grounds, what a way to spend my first time in Ryūchi Cave."