Chapter 6: Forged in the Forest of Dead Bones
The air, cold and thick with the sweet, rotten-meat-and-formaldehyde stench of the lab, pressed down on Nara Shikamaru's lungs like a heavy gel.
He stood in the center of the vast underground laboratory, the floor beneath him as cold and smooth as some kind of biological carapace. All around him, grotesque creations floated in cultivation tanks, bathed in a sickly green light.
But the crushing pressure wasn't physical. It radiated from the pale figure on the high platform before him—Orochimaru.
The gaze from those golden, slitted pupils was like the finest scalpel, effortlessly peeling away the camouflage of his Stealth Jutsu and piercing straight to his soul. It was a look of pure, cold interest, the kind one might give a fascinating new specimen.
"A little brat from the Nara clan... What a rare guest," Orochimaru's voice slithered through the dead-silent space, the sound like scales scraping on stone, raising the hairs on Shikamaru's neck. He took a slow step forward, the hem of his white kimono sweeping silently across the metal platform, the purple snake embroidery writhing like a living thing in the eerie green glow.
"Coming all this way, deep into my little snake pit... Are you lost, or..." He tilted his head, a humorless curve gracing his lips. "...did that old fox Nara Shikaku finally lose his patience and send his precious son to gather intelligence?" The words were light, but they carried a bone-deep chill.
Shikamaru forcibly suppressed the wild hammering of his heart and the nausea rising in his throat. Under the immense pressure, his brain kicked into a strange kind of overdrive, filtering out all useless fear and physical discomfort. He took a deep breath, and the air, thick with the stench of death and madness, paradoxically cleared his chaotic thoughts.
"This has nothing to do with my father," Shikamaru said, looking up to meet those inhuman golden eyes. The face of this ten-year-old boy held none of the fear appropriate for his age, only a near-burning resolve and a heavy calm. "I came to find you myself, Orochimaru."
"Oh?" The last syllable of Orochimaru's voice rose with a hint of amusement. "Interesting. Then, little lost deer, what is it that you wish to... obtain from me?" His long, narrow eyes squinted, his gaze sweeping over Shikamaru's thin frame with an undisguised appraisal, as if judging the quality of a piece of ore.
"Power," Shikamaru's voice was quiet but crystal clear, like a stone dropped into a frozen pond. "Power to change fate. Power... to protect everything! Power that surpasses the limits of the Nara clan's shadows!"
He didn't beat around the bush. In front of Orochimaru, whose insight into the human heart was demonic, any pretense was futile. He was betting on Orochimaru's pathological craving for the "unknown" and for "potential."
"Protect?" Orochimaru let out a low, hoarse chuckle, as if he'd just heard the most absurd joke in the world. A look of almost pitying mockery crossed his pale face. "What a... naive and foolish word. In this world of decay and suffering, only power itself is eternal."
He descended from the platform, his steps silent, moving with the lethal grace of a snake, and stopped a few paces in front of Shikamaru. The cloying scent of blood, herbs, and cold chakra intensified, nearly suffocating the boy.
Orochimaru raised a pale, slender hand, his nails trimmed to sharp points. He didn't touch him, but merely made a gesture in the air, as if tracing Shikamaru's skeleton. "Look at this... fragile vessel of yours," he said, his voice dripping with undisguised contempt, as if critiquing a shoddy piece of work. "The Nara bloodline gave you a fine mind and a talent for shadow manipulation, but it also drained your body of all potential. Loose muscle fibers, mediocre bone density, chakra pathways that are thin and lack resilience... like a cheap bowstring, overstretched and poorly maintained."
He shook his head slightly, his golden eyes filled with a scientist's pure, unadulterated criticism. "And with this body, which could collapse under pressure at any moment, you dare to dream of wielding power great enough to 'change fate'? You seek power from me? Heh... Become one of my test subjects? I'm afraid..." He paused deliberately, his tongue flicking across his thin, bloodless lips, revealing a cruel and honest smile. "...you wouldn't even survive the pain of the first round of basic enhancements before you go 'pop' and dissolve into a useless puddle of flesh, just like the failures in those tanks."
Every word was an icy needle, striking Shikamaru where he was most vulnerable. He knew Orochimaru was right. The Nara physique was his greatest weakness. The memories of a past life and the intellect of this one were rendered pale and powerless before the absolute prison of his own body.
A hot flush of shame and powerlessness washed over him, but deeper still was a molten rage and indignation, ignited by the sheer contempt in Orochimaru's assessment. He clenched his jaw so hard he tasted blood, forcing down the urge to argue. Any emotional outburst would only be seen as weakness. He simply straightened his thin back and stared back into those golden serpentine eyes with an even colder, more stubborn gaze, a silent declaration of his resolve—no matter how laughable it seemed.
The silent defiance seemed to pique a faint flicker of interest in Orochimaru. He studied the fire burning in Shikamaru's eyes—a strange light mixed with desperation, rage, and a reckless madness. "That will of yours... is a little interesting," Orochimaru mused, almost to himself. He seemed to consider something for a moment before turning his head toward a dark corner of the lab.
"Kimimaro," he called out, his voice carrying a strange, vibratory tone.
After a few seconds of silence, the faintest of footsteps emerged from the shadows. A figure slowly walked out. He was tall but unnaturally gaunt, as if a strong wind could blow him over. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent, the blue veins visible beneath. The most striking features were his eyes—they were hollow, dead, like two bottomless wells, devoid of any light. Only when they rested on Orochimaru did they show the faintest, almost imperceptible flicker of fanatical devotion.
As he came to a stop behind Orochimaru and bowed his head respectfully, a violent, soul-tearing cough suddenly wracked his body. He clapped a hand to his mouth, his thin frame trembling like the last leaf in an autumn wind. When he finally lowered his hand, Shikamaru could clearly see the bright, wet sheen of dark red blood between his pale fingers.
Kaguya Kimimaro. The last inheritor of the Shikotsumyaku, the Dead Bone Pulse. A boy cursed by his own powerful bloodline, his life already flickering like a candle in the wind.
"Lord Orochimaru," Kimimaro's voice was a dry, raspy whisper.
Orochimaru's gaze lingered for a second on Kimimaro's blood-stained hand, his golden eyes showing no pity, only the calculating look one gives a valuable, but consumable, tool. He gestured dismissively toward Shikamaru.
"This little Nara brat is yours," Orochimaru said, as if assigning a trivial chore. "His body is far too fragile, like a poorly made piece of porcelain. Before we consider anything else, take this piece of scrap metal... and temper it for me. Use the most... 'effective' method." He stressed the word 'effective,' its cruel implication hanging in the air.
Kimimaro's dead eyes finally fell upon Shikamaru. There was no emotion in them—no curiosity, no contempt, not even the will to fight. It was like looking at a stagnant pool of water.
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru," Kimimaro bowed. Orochimaru, having already lost interest, turned and walked back toward his console, his white-robed figure melting back into the lab's green-tinged gloom.
The vast space now held only Shikamaru and Kimimaro.
In the next instant, an icy, bone-chillingly terrifying chakra, thick with the stench of blood and death, erupted from Kimimaro. It was so condensed, so purely offensive, that it slammed into Shikamaru's senses like an invisible sledgehammer. He let out a grunt, his heart seizing as if gripped by an iron hand.
And then, Kimimaro moved.
He was faster than Shikamaru's eyes could follow. One moment he was there, the next, a pale, bony hand was already pressing against Shikamaru's chest.
BAM!
The sickening thud echoed in the silence. An irresistible force slammed into him, his ribs groaning in protest. He flew backward like a broken kite, crashing into the hard rock wall at the edge of the training area. The wall spiderwebbed with cracks. Pain exploded through his body as he slid to the floor, a spray of blood erupting from his mouth.
The gap in their power was a despairing, uncrossable chasm.
Kimimaro appeared a few feet away, his expression as empty as ever. "Get up," his raspy voice commanded coldly. "Your body is not even qualified to withstand a single attack. Continue."
Shikamaru gasped, every breath a mouthful of shattered glass. Give up? The thought flickered, but was instantly extinguished by the image of Asuma's blood-stained cigarette, of Ino's and Choji's tear-streaked faces, of his father's silent trust.
"Nnngh... AAAAAARGH!" A primal roar, like that of a dying beast, tore from his throat. Using every last shred of his strength, he pushed himself up, his broken fingernails scraping bloody trails in the stone floor. He swayed on his feet, trembling violently, but his eyes burned with a defiant fire that was madder and more stubborn than ever before.
Kimimaro's dead eyes seemed to ripple for a microsecond before returning to their usual stillness. He vanished again.
The cruel forge had only just been lit.
Time lost all meaning in the sunless depths of the Sound Village. The only clock was a repeating cycle of pain, collapse, and being dragged back from the brink of death.
Kimimaro's instruction wasn't training; it was a killing machine methodically beating a substandard weapon into shape. Every punch, kick, elbow, and knee was aimed with surgical precision to inflict maximum pain while just barely avoiding a fatal blow. Shikamaru's shadow techniques were useless, his tactics and evasions a joke. All he could do was try to endure, to learn how to absorb the blows, and in the agony of shattering bones and ruptured organs, to find the will to get back up.
CRACK! A heavy side kick snapped the bone in Shikamaru's forearm. He was sent flying, his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle.
"Get up," Kimimaro's voice was a flat line.
Shikamaru cradled his broken arm, a guttural sound tearing from his throat as he used his good arm and his teeth to crawl, to struggle, to force his broken body upright once more.
When he finally passed out from the pain and blood loss, the training would stop, only to be replaced by a different kind of hell.
He would be submerged in a tank of cold, foul-smelling green liquid. It wasn't a soothing balm; it was torture. It felt like millions of red-hot needles were being driven into every wound, every torn muscle fiber, every fractured bone. The concoction brutally stimulated his body's healing potential, forcing cells to regenerate at an unnatural rate, the price of which was an agony that made him scream until his throat was raw.
When he was fished out, his external wounds would be scabbed over, his broken bones crudely fused back into place. And just as he regained a sliver of consciousness, Kimimaro's cold voice would sound like a death knell.
"Continue."
Day after day. Week after week.
For three months.
The change was subtle, forged in silent suffering. Shikamaru's frame was still thin, but the lines of his body were now hard as steel wire. Scars crisscrossed his skin like a warrior's tapestry. The lazy, clear eyes of a ten-year-old were gone, replaced by the stillness of a deep pool, beneath which lay the cold, sharp edge of tempered steel.
Back in the training area, Shikamaru moved with a newfound explosive power. He dodged a punch, but Kimimaro's follow-up elbow slammed into his crossed arms. The force sent him skidding back, but his bones didn't break this time. He grunted, swallowing the blood that rose in his throat, and his hands flew through a set of seals.
"Shadow Possession Jutsu!"
A shadow, far darker and faster than before, shot toward Kimimaro.
Kimimaro didn't even bother to dodge. He simply stomped his foot. An invisible wave of heavy chakra pulsed outward, and Shikamaru's shadow slammed into it like a tangible wall, wavering violently before shattering completely.
The gap was still immense. But in that last moment, Shikamaru had felt his shadow touch the wall of his opponent's chakra. That was progress.
"Chakra volume, increased by approximately eighty percent. Quality, slightly more refined. Taijutsu reaction speed, increased by sixty percent. Base strength, increased by fifty percent. Durability... increased by two hundred percent," Kimimaro recited the data flatly, like a lab report. A flicker of something—was it acknowledgment?—seemed to cross his dead eyes.
Just then, another violent coughing fit seized him, worse than any before. Blood poured from between his fingers. He swayed, his body looking like it might snap. After a few agonizing seconds, he straightened, wiping the blood from his hand as if it were dirt.
"Rest. Tomorrow, bone-spike defense training," he rasped, the command now tinged with a faint weakness.
Shikamaru stood, watching the blood drip from Kimimaro's hand, watching the boy who seemed to be held together by sheer willpower alone. This hellish three months had only managed to upgrade his 'vessel' from 'shoddy clay' to 'crude iron.' He was still a long, long way from being able to wield the power he needed. He was a long way from being ready for Orochimaru's 'experiments.'
He wiped a trickle of blood from his own lip. "Crude iron... is nowhere near enough," he muttered.
He dragged his aching body toward the pool of pungent green liquid. Taking a deep breath of the foul air, he stepped back into the agony. He didn't scream this time. He just kept his eyes wide open, staring through the green mist at the dark ceiling above, as if to brand the pain, and the oath that drove him, into the deepest part of his soul.
The forging continued. There were still five hundred days until Asuma. And the real price had yet to be paid.