Chapter 102: Immortality and Sterilization

“What way?” Uchiha Madara asked urgently. He needed Orochimaru’s answer.
For the sake of peace he had done too much, yet all he had left was deception. Until now, besides destroying all life, he had no other means.

Madara’s body began to tremble. His green Rinnegan stared blankly at Orochimaru; he needed a path ahead.

Orochimaru gave a faint smile. “Sterilization.”
“Hmm?” Madara blinked.
Orochimaru explained, “We can use a sterilization rite: cut off new life. Life itself can be prolonged without limit, but no new life may be born.”

For a moment Madara thought, this seemed feasible. It was far more reliable than exterminating all living things.
Besides, every life that comes into this world must endure pain and disappointments. Their generation’s life is already so miserable—why should new lives have to repeat it?

At that moment Orochimaru touched his brow. The gate of his Luo Sheng Hall opened, and the “source of the Death Realm” he had once acquired was there, holding a soul-form within.
The soul was in a dormant state, and slowly drifted out. Madara’s green Rinnegan dimly glowed, letting him see it as well.

Orochimaru moved a finger. Purple chakra lines spread through that soul body. It turned half-white and translucent; purple chakra threaded through it like a map of meridians. “I can tamper with the soul itself. I have already embedded this technique in my inherited cultivation method. Once one begins that path, having children is impossible.”

Madara stayed silent for a long while, then said, “You still have one final step undone.”

Orochimaru laughed. “That’s right. I want every creature in this world—on Earth, in outer space, even in other dimensions—to be infected by my art, made immortal, and sterilized.”

Madara said, “Then you will need a very large number of hands.”
If it were only Earth, one person—Orochimaru—would suffice; he could do it alone. But once star clusters were involved, the scope became vast beyond measure. It would require many hands.

“Exactly why I need you to join me,” Orochimaru said.

After another long silence, Madara asked, “I want to know your reason.”
“My reason?”

Orochimaru waved his hand. The scene around them vanished and revealed the ruined ancient kingdom of Loulan. He looked down at it and spoke: “I want to find truth. The truth of the world. The truth of life. The meaning of being alive. Any of those will do.”

He hated war. The old ninja wars had left him exhausted. He had watched familiar lives die one after another, and his heart had recoiled. He always asked himself: What is the meaning of life? What is the truth of life? What is the truth of the world?
He did not know.

At one time he had believed the Sharingan was truth. He chased the Rinnegan, dreaming of possessing a pair of eyes like that.
Then he realized the Sharingan was only a dōjutsu of the Otsutsuki Clan.
Later he thought the Otsutsuki were the truth, but when Sage Mode was completed, yet another new “Source” power appeared—the strongest of natural energies. And of course, that was no truth either.
When power was not truth, he had no path left. But his desire to find truth was born of war, and therefore war should be ended.
He wanted to end all wars in the world. Perhaps then he might find it.

Madara looked at Orochimaru, and suddenly the legendary figure of the Uchiha clan showed a trace of pity. “Orochimaru, you are a pitiful man too.”

Orochimaru only smiled faintly, unconcerned. “You are not truly in this world yet. Your real body is still in the deep pool of the small prime world. I’ll get you out, and then you can help me.”

From his pale-gold vertical pupils a flash of light came. The violet giant serpent circling in the sky dove down and drove straight through Madara’s body.
Madara’s form shattered into points of light and vanished—not death, but a transfer. His true body, in the deep pool of the Origin World, slowly emerged.

...
On the other side, while Orochimaru and Madara fought, the war citadel where Yakushi Kabuto had been was already submerged in the deep sea. People moved in and out of the fortress, living their ordinary lives.

Inside a medical chamber, Uchiha Itachi removed the bandage wrapped over his eyes. Sasuke had transplanted his own eyes into Itachi.
Itachi slowly opened his eyes and looked at the world, finding everything astonishingly clear.
Even stranger, he could see the streams of free-moving energy in the sky without opening his eyes at all.

“You’re awake.” Sasuke, lying on the bed beside him, turned his head slightly at the sound. He was still blind.
Seeing his blind brother, Itachi gave a bitter smile. “Sasuke, why did you do this?”
Sasuke smiled. “It’s always you who decide my future and make everything a mess, just because you’re my brother? This time, I’m deciding yours.”
“Brother!”
Sasuke’s tone grew serious. “I’m not truly dead. The power in your eyes has not fully awakened yet. Orochimaru even developed an emotional reagent. It’s beside your bed. Try it now.”

Itachi looked toward the bedside and saw a tube filled with blue reagent—that must be the emotional reagent Sasuke meant.
“Orochimaru does know how to experiment,” Itachi said, taking the blue reagent and waving it before his eyes.

His eyes had been evolving in the direction of the Sharingan and had never touched the Rinnegan; they were taking a different road while evolving as a Sharingan alone.
His eyes were already at the level of a Super-Ultimate Sharingan. What could they become if they evolved further? A Super-Super-Ultimate Sharingan?
Itachi opened the tube and drank it all at once.
“Ah!”
The emotional reagent entered his body, stirring the most fearful part of his heart. His greatest fear was losing Sasuke.
The illusion it produced showed only Sasuke’s many possible deaths. That part was no issue. The problem was his eyes.
Though he had not fully evolved, a portion had already awakened. Without even opening his eyes, he could see much already, so the emotional reagent did not affect him.
He could see how the reagent was operating inside him.

“This...” Itachi suddenly realized the reagent did more than induce hallucinations. Through his perception he could watch a portion of the blue reagent travel to where his kidney should be and make some alteration.
He could sense deep within that his body was unharmed. The problem was in his soul.
He had been sterilized.

Meanwhile, one-eyed Kakashi Hatake was also studying Orochimaru’s cultivation art, searching for hidden methods so he could know himself and the enemy.
He had taken the red reagent infused with Uchiha bloodline power many times, and at last he discovered he, too, had been sterilized.
The same was true for Tsunade.

The moment Tsunade obtained Orochimaru’s reagent, she had begun tests and analysis immediately and found the same secret as well.
“No. No. No!”
They could hardly bring themselves to accept it.