Anko found a relatively dry, thick branch near the entrance of the cave. She looked it over, feeling its weight. It'll have to do.Not ideal, but it'll have to do.

"Fire Release: Torch." A small flame sputtered to life at the branch's tip, casting flickering shadows on the rough stone walls.

The faint light produced by the incomplete burning of the wood barely penetrated the darkness ahead. The dark, narrow space combined with the flickering firelight gave her a sense of familiarity. She vaguely felt as if she had experienced this before.

"Could it be that I've been to a similar place before?" she muttered.

She wasn't sure. The gaps in her memory left her feeling lost. Another blank spot...

But no matter what, this cave had to be explored. Passing through the narrow entrance, she followed the only tunnel that led deeper into the cave. The deeper she went, the more spacious the cave became. In its widest part, several people could walk side by side.

Upon observing the walls, Anko noticed that the entire cave had been artificially dug. There was nothing natural about it at all.

Strangely, the person who excavated this place didn't leave any lighting fixtures. There were no torches or lamps on the cave walls, as if the tunnel was simply created for some underground creature with degraded vision.

A secret base?

This was deep in the mountains of Mount Bikyū, a place where no one ventured unless they were loggers, and even the loggers had stopped coming after a series of strange events following the flash floods.

A secret base?

This undoubtedly made it the perfect place for a hidden base, one that no one would ever find.

Faced with the obvious signs of human activity, Anko instinctively believed that someone had transformed this place into a secret base.

But whose? And for what? Wait a minute... Could it be?

A name immediately came to her mind:

Orochimaru!

Since he defected, Konoha had been unable to find any trace of him, as though he had vanished from the world.

Being a renowned figure and wanted by one of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, he would naturally find a place to hide to evade capture.

Orochimaru-sama... Are you really here? Part of her longed to see her former master, while another part recoiled at the thought.

While everyone from Konoha speculated that Orochimaru had fled to the southern or northern countries, could he have been hiding on Mount Bikyū in the Land of Fire all along?

It wasn't impossible. The most dangerous place is often the safest. Konoha probably never considered that he hadn't left the Land of Fire at all.

When I see Orochimaru-sama, what will he say?

I'm the first to find him, will he praise me?

But why did he abandon me?

Orochimaru-sama, I have so many questions for you!

Lost in her thoughts, Anko didn't realize she had walked through a long tunnel and arrived in a larger, more spacious area.

It was a wide, square space, also artificially dug. Inside, like exhibits in a museum, were various strange items.

The most striking was a huge cube, about six meters on each side, with thousands of irregular concave windows resembling transparent glass, though they were opaque and didn't let light through.

Next to this enigmatic cube were several long wooden tables resembling workbenches. When Anko approached the tables, she noticed that they were slightly too short for a normal human, as if designed for dwarves.

On these tables, she found more strange devices.

A small black, tumor-like metallic object, about the size of a doorknob, caught her attention. It had many tiny wires attached to it and looked like an intricate piece of machinery.

Next to this 'doorknob', there were numerous black crystal shards scattered around. It was clear that whoever made this object had put considerable effort into it.

There was also a cluster of metal tubes coiled together, the purpose of which, like the 'doorknob', was unclear.

This isn't just a hideout. It's a laboratory. What were you doing here?

Circling around the large cube in the center, Anko came across a reclining surgical table.

The table didn't seem particularly sophisticated, but it was designed to restrain a human body perfectly, almost like a chair used for torture.

However, Anko didn't see any surgical tools nearby. Instead, she found a strange cylindrical object.

It was about 30 centimeters tall, with a smaller radius. There were three distinct metal slots arranged in a triangular pattern on the surface of the cylinder.

Bringing the torch closer to the cylinder's surface and using the faint light from the burning wood, she peered through the glass-like material in the center of the cylinder.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Inside, she saw a brain!

A human brain, suspended in a green nutrient solution!

Blood hadn't been fully cleaned off, leaving fresh, fleshy traces on the gray matter.

Even for a shinobi, witnessing such a horrifying scene suddenly was disturbing. Anko staggered backward in shock, barely able to hold onto her torch.

As she regained her composure, she felt something cold against her back. She raised the torch and turned to see that behind her was a row of large liquid tanks.

There were five tanks in total, the first two of which were empty. In the third tank floated a man, his face somewhat familiar. After a moment's thought, Anko remembered—it was the mute servant from the Abe family's estate.

The servant had his eyes closed and was floating in the liquid, his posture relaxed as if basking in the sun.

In the next tank was the maid from the Abe family. She, too, floated in the liquid, her body just as serene as the servant's.

Should I try to free them? Her hand hovered near the tank's surface. Or would that kill them?

I don't want to look, but I have to know, she forced herself to approach the last tank.

It contained a naked man. Anko looked him up and down, instinctively avoiding his private parts.

The man had a small, well-kept beard on his chin, and his face was twisted in an expression of extreme terror, his mouth wide open, his eyes staring ahead.

Heiji?

Just as Anko was trying to figure out what was going on, the liquid currents inside the tank slowly turned Heiji around, revealing his back.

A massive gash was visible on the back of his head, exposing an empty cavity where his brain should have been.

They... they removed his brain. But why? For what purpose? She connected the dots between Heiji's state and the preserved brain she had seen earlier.

Suddenly, the makeshift torch in her hand went out.

In the darkness, Anko heard a high-pitched buzzing sound slowly approaching her.

What's happening? Did someone—

The next second, a blue, spherical flash of lightning expanded rapidly in her terrified eyes.

---

In the second floor, Tsunade got up from the bed. She then threw the green robe over her shoulders, lit the oil lamp beside her, and walked out of the room with the lamp.

In fact, she hadn't slept much.

This was because she had been pondering over the results of her chakra examination of Ishitaro's body during the day. When she had said that his body wasn't sick, strictly speaking, her diagnosis was not wrong.

From a medical perspective, illness is defined as a deviation in the form or function of human tissues or organs from a normal, healthy state. However, when she examined Ishitaro, his body did not meet the traditional definition of being sick.

This was because his body didn't have any human organs!

Through her chakra sensing, Tsunade found no human organs in Ishitaro's body, including basic life-sustaining organs such as the heart, lungs, stomach, or intestines.

Any human, whether an ordinary person or a ninja, cannot be considered alive without these organs or some kind of substitutes. Yet, Ishitaro could still speak normally and engage in activities resembling those of a typical person, though his movements were slightly strange and sluggish.

Not only that, but his body was not entirely empty inside. She discovered some sort of mushroom-like substance filling his body. She had no idea what kind of fungi these were, nor how they entered his body and managed to maintain his bodily functions like a human.

Despite her medical knowledge and experience with strange cases, Tsunade had never encountered anything like this. In any case, his body strange, and she did not dare to make any rash conclusions.

If the situation allowed, she would have liked to personally dissect and study Ishitaro. Now I know how Orochimaru has always felt...

Heiji would ever let me dissect his father. And even if he did... damn this hemophobia. I'd be useless the moment I saw blood...

Still, this didn't mean that she was going to give up on treating her old friend. Her plan was to conduct a more detailed examination of his body during the night. This time, she had to figure out what exactly these fungal substances were inside his body.

Tsunade checked several rooms on the second floor, excluding Shizune and Anko's rooms, but found no one inside any of them. Where is everyone? It's not like Heiji to leave without a word.

So, she went downstairs. But she still couldn't find Ishitaro anywhere. Not only that, Heiji, the male and female servants of the Abe household, were all missing as well.

Where are they? This is strange. It's already so late. Something's not right.

When she reached the hall, a small wall lamp in the corner was the only light still on. This seemed to be the last place the Abe family had been before they left.

She saw the chair where Ishitaro had been sitting during the day. There was no sign of him, only his blanket was left. However, on the armrests of the chair, Tsunade noticed some white crystalline substance.

She touched it with her fingertip and tasted it. Sugar? Why would there be sugar here?

Moreover, she also found traces of white sugar scattered on the small wooden cabinet opposite the chair. She walked over to the cabinet, opened the door, and felt around inside.

Inside, her hand touched something with a metallic, cold surface. Pulling it out, she found a small box with a metal disc on top. The box had no lid, so it couldn't be opened.

In addition, she found another device with two small camera-like lenses on top and a wooden box filled with various small components. All three items had wires attached to them, and each wire ended in a differently shaped plug: one square, one round, and one triangular.

"What are these things?" Tsunade muttered, examining the objects curiously. Judging by the plugs, they were likely meant to be used together, but she had no idea what they were for.

"When did you start tinkering with gadgets, Ishitaro?" she whispered to herself.

The cabinet was spacious, so to make sure she didn't miss anything, she placed the oil lamp inside and looked carefully for other items.

In the deepest part of the cabinet, the lamp's light reflected off something metallic. Tsunade reached in as far as she could and finally managed to pull the item out. When she held it up to the light, she nearly stumbled in shock.

The cylindrical object contained a brain!

Judging by its structure, this was no small animal brain specimen, but a real human brain. Moreover, it was a brain with a very distinct feature.

On the right side of the frontal lobe, there was a noticeable scar in the brain cortex—a scar that could only be left by surgery. Tsunade immediately recognized how this scar came to be. Because it was from the brain surgery she herself had performed on Ishitaro years ago!

Brain surgery is one of the most advanced medical procedures due to the complexity of the human brain. Even a minimally invasive operation on the brain's surface, like the one she had performed, would be difficult for most to replicate.

Thus, she was certain that this brain belonged to Ishitaro. However, the brain had long lost its healthy pink color and had turned to its original gray, indicating that it had been separated from the body for quite some time—certainly not just a few hours.

Her hands trembled as she held the jar. No... it can't be...

Forcing herself to remain calm, Tsunade recalled the events of the day. If this is his brain, then who... or what... was I examining earlier?

The fungi, the strange behavior, and now this...

Who was the person I spoke with during the day? A ninja using a transformation jutsu?

Impossible. If it were a transformation technique, there's no way I wouldn't have noticed.

A disguise jutsu? But is there really such a flawless disguise technique?

Even with poor lighting, it would be impossible to fool someone like her up close with a disguise jutsu. Disguises typically create a layered or sunken appearance around the eyes due to the mask sitting atop the person's skin.

Yet, when Tsunade looked at Ishitaro's eyes earlier, she didn't notice any such issues.

Additionally, it's extremely difficult to perfectly mimic another person's posture and movement through disguise alone. If someone were in disguise, wouldn't the servants who spent every day with Ishitaro have noticed?

Whatever that thing is, it's not just imitating him. It's replaced him. And the servants, Heiji... where are they? Are they...?