Hokage: Ryo’s Path

By this time, Rin’s rescue mission allowed him to understand two of his weaknesses: One was that he wasn’t skilled enough with Time-Space Ninjutsu, and the other was his lack of mastery of his own Sharingan.

For short distances, Ryo’s Ice Teleportation was good enough, and at least on par with the Flying Thunder God. However, for long distances, if Minato didn’t teach him how to use the Teleportation Barrier, he wouldn’t be able to go so far.

Even with that technique, Ryo still had limits on the distances he could travel. If he was as skilled as Minato with this technique, being able to teleport disregarding the distance, this rescue mission could’ve been much easier.

As for his lack of mastery over his Sharingan, it was mainly due to lack of use.

Now with the sudden opening of his Mangekyo, he was even less accustomed to his Dojutsu.

This was a very clear problem: while he was able to find a way around the risks brought by the use of his Mangekyo, he still couldn’t use it to his full extent; he couldn’t even use any form of Susanoo yet, just as an example.

However, Ryo didn’t have much time to take care of these two problems; he had very important things to take care of first.

After returning to Konoha, Ryo went immediately to Orochimaru’s lab.

At this time, Orochimaru was still studying the white corpse that Ryo’s had brought him, as it was intriguing his greatly.

“Orochi san, did you find anything new today?” Ryo looked at the busy Orochimaru.

Hearing Ryo, Orochimaru put his work to a halt, giving Ryoa rather weird look. After some hesitation, he finally said: “Ryo kun, according to my findings over the course of the past two days, I an only conclude that this body used to be that of a human!”

Ryo’s heart was shook, and it appeared on his face. Never in his life did he expect that Orochimaru would actually find out this fact just through experimenting with a Zetsu clone corpse.

Orochimaru, who saw Ryo’s expression, thought he was just shocked by the fact just like he was when first finding out about the matter.

“Ryo kun, you may find it incredible, but according to my test results, this corpse is indeed of human origin.”

In fact, Ryo absolutely believed Orochimaru’s words. He knew from the Manga that White Zetsus are nothing but what a human turns into after being subject to the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

“Orochi san, this finding, is it useful for us in anyway?” Ryo asked.

“Of course it is! If nothing else, this is a unique kind of transformation, one we could understand and develop!” Orochimaru licked his lips in excitement.

Ryo was excited by the idea, and White Zetsu did indeed have many intriguing special abilities!

However, he did show excitement for long. He did not come to discuss Zetsu’s matter, but for other purposes.

“Orochi san, I have something to ask you!” Ryo said with a serious tone.

“What is it?” Orochimaru was still in his good mood.

“Don’t you have a horn of the Hachibi?”

Hearing Ryo, Orochimaru was stunned at first, and then asked: “Ryo kun, how do you know about this?”

Ryo had no intention to conceal anything, and told Orochimaru the truth of the matter.

In fact, Ryo learned about this fact also thanks to Pakura!

While he was in the Sand Village, she told him that the Sand Spies have spotted Orochimaru in the Cloud Village with a strange horn shaped item, during the 2nd Shinobi World War.

It was no secret that the Hachibi was missing a horn in all his subsequent appearances. Therefore, Pakura immediately thought that it was the Hachibi’s horn that was with Orochimaru.

She knew that Ryo was collecting the Chakra of the Biju, so she told him about the matter while he was at her place.

Hearing Ryo’s explanation, Orochimaru joked around with him: “You have many sources of intelligence Ryo Kun! What did you do to get Pakura, the Sand’s one and only councilor, to give you such information?”

With his relationship to Jiraya, Orochimaru certainly knew that Ryo had spared Pakura’s life once during battle in the Wind Country.

Now as he learned that Pakura was giving Ryo intelligence, he  actually became curious about the relationship between the two.

“Orochi san, Pakura is just my friend! Don’t over-think the matter.” Ryo explained to Orochimaru.

Orochimaru smiled and didn’t hold on to this topic, but went on to talk about the Hachibi’s horn: “Ryo kun, I can give you the Hachibi’s horn, but I need the rest of this guy’s body!”

(T/N: The whole thing about Orochimaru unleashing the Hachibi to take a sample from his horn is not cannon. In the Anime, Orochimaru just scratched the beast’s horn to extract its cells. It seems here that the Author has decided to ignore that filler and get Orochimaru to have the entire horn -which makes more sense as he could just seal the whole thing being so proficient in Fuinjutsu-!)

Orochimaru was pointing to Zetsu’s arm on the table, as he guessed that Ryo might have the rest of his body stored.

Hearing Orochimaru’s condition, Ryo proceeded immediately to taking out 3 whole corpses directly from a scroll he had on, handing them over to Orochimaru.

Orochimaru was rather surprised. What he initially wanted was just one corpse, and Ryo gave three at once!

“Ryo kun, how many of these corpses do you have?”

“I still have to more, but I’ll be needing those. I don’t think you need more than these three Orochi san?”

Orochimaru sighed, as he did want more, but these three that Ryo gave were indeed more enough for his foreseeable research.

“Ryo kun, come with me!” After Orochimaru sealed the corpses, he left the lab with Ryo.

In fact he took him all the way out of Konoha.

After taking a few steps into the woods, Orochimaru stopped near a pile of stones, and then undid some surrounding seals and barriers, and a small appeared on the ground.

After opening the gate, he and Ryo went underground.

Ryo was rather surprised to see all of this. There was a lot of space here, with many peculiar things.

Ryo was curious, looking around eagerly, but Orochimaru wasn’t about to take him on a tour, but instead led him to the second floor.

On the second floor of the base, at Ryo’s 1st glance, he saw the Hachibi’s horn placed inside a massive glass container.

The Hachibi’s horn was close to the two, but Ryo could not feel any of the Hachibi’s Chakra.

“Ryo kun, the Hachibi’s Chakra in this horn needs to be refined and extracted. The way to do that is…” Orochimaru explained the method to Ryo.

After that, he sealed the horn within a scroll and handed it to Ryo.

After getting the Hachibi’s horn, Ryo hurriedly bid farewell to Orochimaru, and then immediately teleported to the cave where Korin was born in the Forest of Death.

Following Orochimaru’s instructions, Ryo began to extract the Hachibi’s Chakra from the horn.

The Chakra’s continuous extracting went under Ryo’s control, and after it reached a certain amount, Ryo summoned Korin to inject the Chakra into her body.