Silk

V.

It was lucky. Under normal circumstances, being buried in the country of Waves would do horrible things to a body—all that moisture, coupled with the land’s typical tropical climate, would send decomposition into overdrive. Given the time of year – in the middle of sticky, humid summer – added to how long the bodies had been buried… well. It was nothing short of a miracle that flesh looked as good as it did when Sasuke brought the corpses in.

Of course, Orochimaru was fascinated. It was a morbid hobby, studying the effects of death on a human being. It was what allowed him to cheat it time and time again. Given the state of decomposition (or lack thereof), not only would this boy assist them in raising a new village, but in the arts of preservation of life. Certainly useful, given the size of the group at the moment.

The smaller of the two bodies was shifted, placed on a mat to keep the dirt away as much as possible, and he began his work. First, the delicate operation of removing clothing, cut away bit by bit by the smallest of cuts through fabric. It was made more difficult along the area of the boy’s left pectoral muscle, where the killing wound was. It was difficult to miss, unless you were blind. One doesn’t take a gaping hole to the chest and survive. Briefly, he wondered about what could have caused this, especially in battle as Sasuke had summarized. Rather than asking the other about it, the man leaned closer to investigate himself, snakelike orbs peering into the mess of bloodied flesh, noting the burns, the blackened places that were literally cooked, threads of cloth stuck to the gore.

In the back of his mind, he sighed in frustration. Bodies that weren’t completely mutilated were easier to raise, since the corpse itself was reusable. Messes like this, however, took some extra thought, as whatever damage was done needed to be reversed before bringing a soul back.

Water washed away long-dried blood, leaving pale skin untouched and ready for the examining, to see the extent of the damage done. If organs needed replacing, this could mean quite a few headaches. The sheer size of the hole made it easier to investigate without the need of further cutting, and simple pins kept the skin back to allow lighting inside. Orochimaru was relieved to see that, while singed, major organs were otherwise in one piece. It was the sheer blood loss and trauma that had killed the child, an entire section of the major artery gone. Just connect those and…

Shit. Gold eyes picked up on thinner, almost invisible connections, those having been delicate to begin with to withstand such brutal force. The chakra pathways centering around the area had been completely severed, leaving any paths to the boy’s left arm useless. No jutsu, unless he could find a way to fix the pathways, something that made the replacement of organs seem all the easier.

First thing was first. Hours seemed to fly by as he worked, miniscule instruments carefully piecing the boy back together, removing unsalvageable cells from the body and adapting the others to functioning without the help of those missing. Dead blood was removed, a tedious process done by channeling chakra through the circulatory system, liquidating the cells once more and pushing it from the body, leaving the tubes clean for fresh blood to be made. Once the body was prepared, the real work began, the elder male bending over the corpse, willing that dead heart to beat, to create new blood to replace what was taken, pale blue flesh slowly turning to a gentle rose. Orochimaru reached for the face, then, tilting the head back and forcing the jaw open, leaving the airways open to allow the lungs to fill with oxygen. He could feel himself tiring, energy placed fully into breathing for another creature as well as himself, working the once-dead organs into the rhythm of taking in oxygen and pumping blood.

Slowly but surely, chakra moved outward in a network, waking the rest of the boy’s system into life once more. Lucky, so lucky, bacteria and other decomposers hadn’t even touched the child, it was all to easy to remind flesh of what it once was, getting the rhythm back before he focused on his greatest problem: the brain.

Borrowed chakra could only do so much if the boy’s brain refused to jumpstart. All the effort taken thus far would be little more than an elaborate embalming project. It was a rare event in which Orochimaru prayed. He was praying now.

Luckily enough, almost immediately after he began to fuel them, sparks began to fly, electrical messages leaping over synapses, the complex system coming to life once more. Orochimaru sat back with a sigh, elated almost to the point of a jig. But even with how well the body had taken to life again, it would be a long while before the child would wake, and given the state of his body, even longer before he would be allowed to walk around on his own.

A blanket to cover the boy, and he was moving on to the larger corpse. Pale lips thinned in a grimace as he took note of the beating this one had gone through, at the various lacerations and puncture wounds. Something to make one cringe even further was that fact that they were focused primarily on the man’s back. And yet, different stages of clotting suggested that despite physical trauma, this creature had kept going, had kept moving like a berserker even as more weapons found a home in his flesh. Orochimaru was painfully reminded of what could drive a person to behave that way, Kimimaru’s being one of many faces to come to mind. An act like that was perfectly deliberate, an act of sheer desperation. This man knew he was going to die.

Even with the various lacerations and other injuries, compared to the boy before, it was nothing short of a cakewalk to repair. The most damage that had been done was to major veins and arteries, and that was simple to fix, unlike replacing an entire section of human flesh completely. Within the space of a few hours, the snakelike man found himself feeding chakra through the corpse, doing much the same as he had with the boy previously. A whispered prayer in the back of his mind, and the body was working on its own, sustaining life once more and working hard to keep itself stable.

Orochimaru sat back then, satisfied. They would have to monitor the pair to guarantee a high survival rate, but that would be easy enough. All that was left now was to wait.