Chapter 2

The headache, the dryness of his mouth, the withdrawal in his entire body - that was not even half of what Orochimaru, who had returned from the other side of the world, had to deal with once again.

If it were not for the slanting wooden ceiling, which for some reason caused strange associations in his genius head that should not be there you would think that he woke up again after another binge, which Jiraiya usually arranged after every mission trip, and which Orochimaru agreed to attend only once. Perhaps the only useful thing he learned from that occasion was the realization of the need to immediately acquire immunity to alcohol.

And since there were no women lying on either side of him, he quickly dismissed this assumption, since no booze party with Jiraiya is without them.

Looking at his familiar, white, albeit small, bloody hand, Orochimaru began to slowly and cautiously rise from the filthy bed on which he had happened to have lain for an unknown amount of time.

After taking a look inside himself, and making sure that he had performed all of his recent actions correctly, Orochimaru returned to reality.

"Most of the chakra is sealed. There's a reserve at the level of a weak chunin, plus a small gap I left for quick replenishment", He chuckled, shifting his gaze to the locked door. "I'm surprised there's no sign of body damage yet"

Beginning to disperse chakra through the still squishy channels he'd inherited from the unwanted recipient, Orochimaru began going through all the hand seals he knew.

"Strange", he thought to himself, "in theory, my chakra pathways shouldn't be any thicker than those of a recently awakened child. But surprisingly, they are somewhere at the level of a weak genin. That is to say, C-rank chakra level techniques are quite accessible to me, which can't help but make me happy."

Approaching the door, Orochimaru stared through the door crack at the primitive iron latch, which had been an insurmountable obstacle for the previous body master. But not for him.

At first Orochimaru just wanted to squeeze his long tongue through the door slit, but remembering that he had not yet used the Soft Body Modification technique on this body, which was not even a technique, but rather a small series of operations to improve joint mobility and increase muscle and ligament elasticity, annoyedly tsked.

Closing his eyes, Orochimaru tried to feel the seal space and pull chakra from the gap left in advance.

As a result, he had no choice but to apply the chakronity technique. And unfortunately, it was one of the techniques he had once mastered, but had not practiced for lack of use.

Though with some difficulty, after half a minute he still managed to form a thread of chakra on his index finger, and after a little more time, Orochimaru was able to pick up the handle of the latch, a moment later he was immediately out in the open.

He was about to leave the house, which didn't seem to be very welcoming, but he decided to stay for a while, as he had long noticed that the amount of nutrients in his body was at a critically low level.

Because of the specially tuned spatial seal in his stomach, which he had set aside exclusively to contain food, he had forgotten to think about it in his past bodies. Thus he was never distracted from his research, or missions, while being a Konohagakure shinobi. He only remembered to refill it every two months.

If necessary, he could go without food for half a year or even a year, like a snake. But in this case, his combat efficiency was reduced by more than eighty percent; in the second variant, he fell into a deep hibernation.

Now none of the aforementioned options was available to him, since the transmigration into a new body could not copy all the modifications that he had performed on himself. But luckily, he could easily repeat them all, all he had to do was get to the proper surgical equipment.

Giving in to the boy's residual memory, Orochimaru followed the corridor into the house, treading carefully on the green carpeting.

He reached the small kitchen fairly quickly, and immediately rushed over to the tall white refrigerator that was tightly propped against the corner of the room.

He was so caught up in replenishing the provisions that he managed not to notice the rather large and fat man behind him, who was quietly sneaking into the kitchen as well.

He only sensed something wrong when a large, heavy hand rested on his frail shoulder, which made him turn back at once and try to bounce away in vain.

The only thing he could see in the dim light of the refrigerator was the fierce-looking eyes with swollen capillaries that stared at him in indescribable anger.

He knew at once that any conversation here would be utterly pointless (not that he was used to negotiating with aggressive civilians), so he immediately set to work.

He leaned heavily against the open refrigerator with his back and reinforced his body with chakra, and then stretched his arm to the full length of his body, jabbing it straight into the man's stomach, concentrating quite a lot of wind chakra for his body in his hand. Then abruptly released it all with a sharp elbow thrust.

"Futon: Reppusho" he thought quickly, but he didn't voice the name of the technique.

The heavy mustached man flew across the kitchen like he'd been hit by a truck, hitting the hard wall with his back, while Orochimaru was pressed even harder against the refrigerator shelves, causing him to fall, hitting his tailbone rather painfully.

"Tsk, we'll have to remove that useless bone spur sometime later", Thought Orochimaru, getting up, and rubbing the bruised area.

"Ten percent chakra is like it never happened," Orochimaru thought glumly, looking at his slightly reddened palm.

"Ten seconds to full recovery. It won't be very effective in combat, so you'll have to be more frugal with techniques," Orochimaru thought as he strolled around the kitchen, carefully examining the kitchen knives on the wooden stand, and checking them for balance.

"Not kusanagi, but it might come in handy," he said, tossing up a kitchen knife.

"Vernon, what the... A-a-ah!", the flustered woman in her nightie screamed loudly, seeing her husband apparently lying on the floor.

"A-a-a-a-ah!" she screamed even more, seeing the familiar, but even paler-faced boy tossing one of her knives.

Orochimaru immediately responded to another external stimulus by masterfully throwing the knife with a pinching grip toward the woman, amplifying his throw with chakra in the process.

But it was either her body that let her down, or the knife itself, which was not designed for such manipulation, but instead of striking the woman's head, the knife got stuck a few inches from her head, causing her to go completely mad with fear, and run toward the stairs.

"Troublesome", he grudgingly tsked his tongue, "but in my position, carving out civilians is even more problematic...", He thought, walking over to the knife, pulling it from the wall, and slipping it into his pant belt. "Especially since I'm not going to stay in this body much longer."

Heading down the hall toward the front door, Orochimaru noticed the mirror that was above the shoe rack and after thinking for a while, decided to take a look at himself.

The eyes of a very pale boy, with short, tangled, coal-colored hair on his head, looked up at him. If you compare him to Orochimaru of the same age, the only differences were the length of his hair and the different shape of his nose, which was slightly flattened and wider. But this wasn't the first time he had changed his appearance. The most important difference was the bright green eyes with the usual slit pupil.

And it was this difference that bothered him the most.

"Whatever body I inhabit, the hazel eyes are the one thing that has always stayed with me", He frowned. "But what has changed? The influence of that technique? Quite possibly..."

But noticing the dull scar on his forehead, he immediately lost that thought.

"Judging by the residual emanations of other people's spiritual energy, this is where the cursed seal was contained." He remembered the most important thing of all. "We need to figure out what caused him to be branded with it before his body began to deteriorate. It's possible that the clue is in the developed chakra through "

Glancing again at his reflection, he noticed blood stains on his clothes.

Quickly finding the bathroom, which was on the same first floor, Orochimaru quickly washed his face in warm water and tried to wash off the blood stains on his clothes.

"It's no use," he thought as he left the bathroom, "the blood is dried, it can't be washed off. I'll have to cover it up with something."

Looking out into the hallway, which was already slightly lit up because the sun was starting to shine, Orochimaru noticed a black cloth raincoat hanging on a hook by the door.

"It's a bit out of size, but there's nothing to do."

Wrapping himself tightly in his raincoat, Orochimaru headed for the exit, but stopped again when he noticed the phone receiver on the wall.

Without thinking, Orochimaru pulled a kitchen knife from behind his belt, and cut the phone cord in two places.

Quickly finding the bathroom, which was on the same first floor, Orochimaru quickly washed his face in warm water and tried to wash off the blood stains on his clothes.

"Now we can go," Orochimaru said as he walked to the door, turning the key that someone had carefully left in the keyhole.