Uchiha Madara died without ceremony.
Uchiha Obito buried him without ceremony either, just a grave in the dirt of an unnamed cave, which was more than most men who had tried to reshape the world ever received. Whatever Obito felt about it, he kept to himself.
He was grateful, in his way. He had been dead once already, technically. Madara had pulled him back from that, patched him together with White Zetsu material and sheer will, and then spent years pouring everything he knew into the young man standing over the fresh grave. All of it — the techniques, the knowledge, the vision, the plan for the world that would come after this one. And along with the plan, the reason to care about it: the promise that somewhere on the other side of all that destruction, there was a world where Lin was still alive.
That was worth gratitude.
Obito packed the plan carefully and turned away from the grave.
The half-black, half-white figure of Zetsu waited for him at the cave mouth.
"What's next?" Obito asked.
White Zetsu said nothing. Black Zetsu answered: "The Rain Country. We go to the Rain Country first. Nagato is there, and he's the cornerstone of this entire plan. He has the Rinnegan and with it he can perform the Outer Path's techniques. We need power to back us up, real power, and Nagato needs to be our public face going forward. Persuade him to join us."
"Then we go to the Rain Country," Obito said.
Black Zetsu paused, then asked, "Before we leave — have you heard of a man called Rodriguez Finn? Or an organization called the Yorozuya?"
Obito thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Who is he? What's the Yorozuya?"
It wasn't surprising that he hadn't. When the Kannabi Bridge incident happened, Finn had still been drinking with Jiraiya somewhere in the Land of Earth. At most, Finn had killed the Third Raikage by then, but wartime intelligence was a mess of conflicting reports, and Obito had not exactly been monitoring current events from inside a healing cave. The Yorozuya hadn't even existed yet when he went under.
"Rodriguez Finn is extremely powerful," Black Zetsu said, with what might have been appreciation in its voice. "S-rank wanted in every major hidden village simultaneously. The Yorozuya operates under his leadership. They're unpredictable — irreverent, almost reckless in how they work — but if you could hire them, they would be a significant asset."
Obito considered this. "S-rank in the whole ninja world. How strong is he?"
He paused. Then he straightened his spine slightly, and with the unshakeable self-possession that could only come from someone who had just inherited the plan of the most powerful man in the previous century, he said: "How does he compare to me?"
Black Zetsu looked at him.
Honestly, the answer was complicated in ways that would not help anyone right now. What Obito had was extraordinary — Kamui, Hashirama cells grafted into half his body, and a freshly imprinted library of knowledge he hadn't even begun to understand. His weaknesses were equally extraordinary, just less obvious. Under normal circumstances, someone who knew what those weaknesses were could absolutely hurt him.
Rodriguez Finn absolutely knew what those weaknesses were.
But none of that was useful to say at the start of a multi-decade plan that required Obito's full commitment.
"You're probably more powerful," Black Zetsu said. "Under ordinary circumstances, he'd have difficulty harming you."
This was technically true in at least one reading of the situation, so Black Zetsu felt fine about it.
Obito nodded, satisfied. "Then give him the chance to work for me."
"Don't rush that," Black Zetsu said carefully. "Let's handle Nagato first."
"Fine. Let's go see what kind of person Madara trusted with the Rinnegan."
Obito left the cave with Black and White Zetsu moving alongside him, heading northwest toward the border of the Rain Country. Kannabi Bridge was not far from here. The Rain Country wouldn't take long.
At approximately the same time, roughly the same distance away in a completely different direction, Nohara Rin stepped out of the base carrying a garbage bag.
Orochimaru was coming back from outside when he saw her. He stopped walking.
"Finn is remarkably careless," he said, not bothering to hide his irritation. "This location is not far from Uchiha Madara's lair. Are you aware of that?"
Rin smiled at him with the pleasant, slightly apologetic expression she had developed for exactly these conversations. "I'm just taking the trash out to the entrance, Lord Orochimaru. It should be fine."
"Regardless, consider changing your appearance when you go near the opening." He said it flat, as a matter of operational hygiene, and didn't wait for a reply before walking inside.
The base was a large natural cave, its interior worn smooth enough over decades to pass for architecture. Orochimaru found the others clustered in the central open area, which was spacious enough that Kakuzu, Sasori, and Biwa Juzo standing around a single person didn't feel cramped. They were all watching Finn.
Finn had his eyes closed.
"Is it finally happening?" Sasori asked, noting Orochimaru's arrival without looking away from the main event.
"After all this waiting," Kakuzu said, "he's actually going to develop Wood Release."
Juzo looked like he had won something. His arms were crossed, his weight rocked forward on his toes, barely containing it. "Once he pulls this off, he's going to be on the same level as the First Hokage. A proper ninja god."
"Not immediately." Kakuzu's tone was the one he used when correcting someone who should know better. "He'll still need to master the technique completely, not just unlock it."
As an old man who had once been sent to assassinate Hashirama Senju in person — a mission he had survived only because he had not been foolish enough to follow through — Kakuzu understood exactly what "First Hokage level" actually meant in practice. The gap between unlocking a bloodline limit and wielding it the way Hashirama had was not a small one.
Orochimaru heard this and felt his interest sharpen. He moved closer. "What exactly is happening right now?"
"He's at the final stage of fusing water and earth chakra," Sasori explained. "He said he was close. He said to watch."
Orochimaru had waited for this development longer than anyone else in the room, having planted the Hashirama cell primer himself and spent six months studying the biological substrate it was working within. He settled in to watch.
The air around Finn changed first. A stillness that had been holding for some time began to move, the energy around him shifting from steady concentration into something more agitated, more alive. Then his eyes opened.
He raised one hand, exhaled, and said it clearly: "Wood Release. Great Forest Technique."
The water and earth attributes in his body fused.
He was smiling when it happened. Just for a moment.
Then a great deal of mud poured out of the ground.
It gushed up from underfoot with genuine enthusiasm, spreading across the cave floor in a wide, wet, thoroughly muddy pool. The clean stone disappeared. The base's central square, which Rin had presumably already cleaned at some point, was now a swamp.
The four people watching said nothing.
Juzo recovered first. "That's... not Wood Release."
"Mud Release," Kakuzu said, with the careful, slightly stricken tone of a man checking his own conclusion twice before committing to it. "That's... Mud Release."
Sasori turned away. The movement was slow and deliberate, the precise body language of someone removing themselves from an embarrassing situation. Even from inside the Hiruko puppet shell, the contempt was readable.
"What was that look?" Finn said.
"Wood Release's look," Sasori said, still not turning around.
Finn looked at Orochimaru instead. Orochimaru had been quiet throughout, and had not moved since the mud appeared. He was still watching the puddle, one arm folded across his chest, his free hand at his chin.
"Explain this to me," Finn said. "I fused water and earth. I have Hashirama's cells inside me. I have enough vitality to choke a tailed beast. By every reasonable calculation, that should have been Wood Release. How did I produce a mud puddle?"
He paused. He looked at the mud.
"I've apparently created a new bloodline limit," he added, in the voice of a man who could not figure out how to feel about this. "I know that should be significant. I genuinely cannot be happy about it right now."
Orochimaru let the silence run for a moment before he spoke. "The Mud Release itself is not as minor as it looks. As a bloodline limit, it likely has considerable practical potential — earth and water combined at that density, responsive to chakra, has obvious applications. That aside." He shifted his weight slightly. "As for why Wood Release hasn't manifested — I don't think the timing was right."
Finn stared at him. "Timing again."
"Timing again," Orochimaru confirmed, without particular apology.
"Can I just re-fuse the water and earth?" Finn asked. "Try again with a different approach?"
Kakuzu shook his head. "Theoretically, no. Once a bloodline limit crystallizes, it establishes a fixed pattern in the chakra network. Attempting to re-fuse those same elements is almost certainly going to produce the same result. You can't overwrite it by repetition."
"So Wood Release is just... finished? Permanently off the table?"
"No," Orochimaru said.
Finn looked at him.
"Here's my current thinking," Orochimaru said. He uncrossed his arms and moved closer, still watching the mud with the focused expression he reserved for research problems. "What you've just done was a deliberate, actively guided fusion. You were directing the water and earth chakra consciously, telling them where to go and what to become. The result was Mud Release. That's done; the pattern is set. But." He paused. "The fact that you've now successfully fused those two natures once means the substrate has been activated. The primer I introduced, the Hashirama cells — they're still there, still assimilated into your system. Wood Release is not a mechanical combination. It has an organic component, a living quality, something closer to growth than construction. If you stop trying to force it and let the fused natures interact with the primer naturally — over time, at instinct level — I believe the Wood Release seed will mature on its own. The possibility of that happening is, in my assessment, quite high."
Finn absorbed this. "So you're telling me to stop worrying about it."
"Don't worry about it," Orochimaru said.
Finn looked at the mud one more time. He looked at the ceiling.
What Orochimaru said was not consolation — it was a research conclusion, and Finn knew the difference. He had watched Orochimaru work for long enough to know that the man did not offer comfort dressed up as analysis. If he said the seed would grow, he had a reason to believe it.
There was also the other possibility Orochimaru kept to himself, the one he turned over quietly as he looked at the mud: that the missing variable was the Sharingan. Obito had activated Wood Release with both Hashirama cells and a Mangekyō Sharingan active simultaneously. The Uchiha chakra and the Hashirama cells had harmonized through the Sharingan's yin-natured framework. Finn had extreme yang vitality, extraordinary chakra volume, and the primer — but no Sharingan. Whether that gap was the deciding factor was something Orochimaru filed away to investigate further.
"Incidentally," Orochimaru said, the shift in his voice subtle but present, "I've finished my business in Konoha. I'm officially an S-rank missing-nin as of now. Before I left, I collected several Sharingan samples. That research line begins here."
Finn's expression changed immediately. "I've been waiting for that."
Something in his chest loosened that had been tight for a while. The Sharingan research was the project he'd pointed Orochimaru toward months ago, and having Orochimaru now fully committed, fully present, and apparently holding a collection of freshly acquired specimens was a genuinely good development.
"Is the equipment here sufficient?" Finn asked.
"Not entirely. But I've already sent word to my people to forward the necessary materials. They're en route."
This surprised no one who understood how Orochimaru actually operated. The public image was a Konoha Sannin, solitary, institutionally embedded. The reality was a network of personal subordinates scattered across several countries, operating out of research bases funded largely by Shimura Danzo's budget over the years. Orochimaru traveled light only because he had infrastructure waiting at the destination.
There was also the matter of Anko. He had placed the Heaven's Curse Mark on her before leaving — he had even asked her, directly and honestly, whether she wanted to come with him. She had said no. He had not killed her for it, which said something about him, and had gone to considerable trouble to seal her relevant memories before walking out of her life, which said something else.
Orochimaru settled into the base with the calm efficiency of someone who had already decided this was where the work would happen now.
The mud on the floor was still there.
Rin was going to need another garbage bag.