The Lab

A/N: Ok, the poll results are in, we are going to be continuing on with the story in the third volume, the chunin exams. I expected the results of the poll to at least be somewhat close but nope lol.

As I said previously, there will be a week hiatus between volumes two and three for planning and the volume should be wrapping up relatively soon.

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It took Mizuki just short of ten minutes from paying off his bill and leaving the ramen shop, and reaching the location of Orochimaru's Lab.

Mizuki knew the route to reach the lab like the back of his hand, mostly in part due to months of constantly going there had ingrained the location of it deep into his muscle memory.

He body flickered through the streets, hopping from rooftop to rooftop as he approached the lab.

Repeating the process which he had scene done dozens of times, He flipped under the doormat and fished out his kunai as he scanned it's bottom.

After carefully scanning it, he finally found what he was looking for. He carefully stabbed his kunai into an area of the mat with a slight oddity, a small holl.

After maneuvering around the tip of his kunai and struggling, Mizuki finally fished out the key, and unlocked the door.

Mizuki: {Why does he have to make things so needlessly complex? Can't he just give me a key?}

Mizuki carefully placed the key back in it's hiding spot before opening the door with a familiar click.

As he entered the building, Mizuki followed the only path he knew in the house, he expertly maneuvered through the main hallway and a series of rooms until he reached the entrance to the lab.

The once horrifying entrance had become familiar site to Mizuki, the darkness that followed in the stairs that followed had lost the horror that they once plagued him with.

Little did he know that it would be the last time he could have such complacent thoughts.

Mizuki emerged from the staircase and walked down the stone hallway, dimly lit by torches that never seemed to be extinguished, or at least weren't when Mizuki was in the lab.

He then entered the Office that he and Anko all too commonly used when they were raiding one of the many bookshelves that decorated the walls.

However, Mizuki's train of thought would be interrupted when he heard a voice behind him.

Orochimaru: "Good to see that you are on time Mizuki"

Although he understood that there was a great divide between the two, Mizuki was angry over the fact that he still couldn't detect Orochimaru's chakra.

It was one thing for Orochimaru to be faster and stronger than him, that is only to be expected.

However, being able to perfectly sneak up behind him was something else entirely.

Mizuki was pulled out of his thoughts again by the sound of Orochimaru's voice.

Orochimaru: "Now follow me"

Orochimaru walked out of the office and down the hallway, passing the training room with no sign of stopping.

This was his first clue that something was off.

They had never gone past that door before.

Up until that point, all of their work as his assistant were mainly administrative duties.

Organizing his encoded notes, translating different jutsu scrolls from far off lands and cataloguing countless shinobi related subjects for their sensei.

But not today.

Mizuki promised to essentially be the "Kabuto" to Orochimaru. And it was time to do the jobs that the roll entailed.

Blood and All.

The winding corridor that Mizuki walked down gave him a sense of meaninglessness. All of the walls and the ceiling and all of the floor. Besides the occasional doorway into dark and seemingly abandoned rooms, They were all the same.

No matter how far they walked down that hallway, they did not change.

It felt like he was getting nowhere, walking through the winding corridors endlessly in a loop.

That is until he heard it.

At first it sounded ever so slight, like a faint voice lost in the wind.

But Mizuki was positive he heard it.

The sound of a tortured scream.

That sound caused Mizuki to jolt up and place his already high alert even higher.

As they walked on, the voice seemed to vanish. With new ones taking its place sporadically.

Some were crying for help, others for mercy, some even for a peaceful and dignified death.

Needless to say, the screams took a toll on Mizuki's psyche, who was desperately trying to hold what remained of his persona together as he walked onwards, following his sensei's footsteps.

Orochimaru noticed the boy's reaction and smirked, wondering if he would break in the upcoming trials and tribulations.

It could have been fifteen minutes, it could have been two hours, but all Mizuki knew was that they eventually stopped in front of a doorway.

Similar to all of the others that they had passed up until that point, the room appeared dark on the inside, pitch black.

Mizuki could not tell what was going on in there, although he had little time to contemplate as his sensei stepped inside, expecting Mizuki to follow behind him.

As soon as he entered the room, the door shut behind him, leaving him in complete darkness.

Despite the fact that he was incredibly on edge, this did little to hamper his nihilistic and cynical sense of humour and only caused it to grow.

Mizuki: {I thought I was in Naruto, not some fucking 80s horror movie, seriously?}

Deciding against using fire style to create a torch, both due to fearing his sensei's reaction and not wanting to consume too much of his chakra,

He was soon rewarded with a series of torches which ignited one by one, slowly illuminating the once pitch black room in an erie orange glow, revealing a sight that would change Mizuki forever.

The room looked like a primitive version of a sparsely decorated doctor's office. With a desk that was carved into the wall, complete with an attached section that contained an array of scalpels and other surgical tools.

There was a doorway directly across from the one that Mizuki just entered through, with it most likely extending deeper into the complex.

Mizuki realized that this doorway was also likely where Orochimaru's victims entered from their chambers somewhere else in the lab in order to be experimented on.

The thought made him shiver, with the final feature of the room only confirming his fears, a large stone slab in the corner functioning as a "bed" that despite being impeccable and clean, had the faint smell of iron and rust.

Blood.

Mizuki looked up to see his sensei, only to be met with a bemused smirk decorating his face as he stared at him.

Orochimaru: "I am sure by this point you have predicted what I would like you to do."

Mizuki steeled his resolve as he faced his sensei, so long as he got out of this ordeal alive and he was not harming those who were close to him, he couldn't care less what happened to anybody else.

Mizuki: "Yes."

Orochimaru: "Good"

Seeing that he was prepared, Orochimaru handed Mizuki a folder containing the procedure he was to perform, in addition to information on the patient.

The patient was nobody of note, an ordinary middle aged bandit who seemed to somehow learn a small variety of ninjutsu.

Allegedly, Orochimaru was able to capture them from the small village that he was hiding out in whilst he passed by it on his way back from a mission recently.

The backdrop of a war truly provided Orochimaru with an excellent opportunity to be able to kidnap victims without anybody noticing.

The procedure itself though, was something that Mizuki began to have a morbid curiosity with.

Similar to the anime, Orochimaru was trying to replicate kekkei genkai in those who don't have it. Although now Mizuki learned about the actual procedure behind it in great depth.

Clearly, the procedure was still in a prototype stage as it was still being tweaked and adjusted upon in order to make it more efficient.

As the jutsu was still in its early stages, it was clear that Orochimaru was not willing to squander his supply of Hashirama DNA.

Instead, as the patient reportedly had an affinity for both fire and wind releases, Orochimaru used DNA that he was able to acquire when he infiltrated the hidden sand, that of the clan that used scorch release.

As soon as Mizuki believed he understood the procedure, be it due to work on the part of his sensei, or pure coincidence, it was this moment that the "patient" stepped through the door.

He had clearly been through hell whilst at the facility, showing signs of malnutrition and dehydration.

Although none of those things were his concern as he approached the man to place him on the operating table.

Whilst a man like him might normally struggle fiercely against such a thing, the days he had spent starved and tortured had broken him into a shell of what he once was.

Mizuki used the belts attached to the table to restrain the bandit's limbs to make sure that he would not move around during the surgery.

Mizuki once again went over the checklist in his head of the tools he had on hand and the procedure only to realize something.

He shot his gaze up to the snake only to see him smiling back at him with his amused smirk as he watched the drama unfold before him.

He definitely knew.

Despite his slight distaste in what he had to do, Mizuki swallowed back his fears and regrets as he approached the victim that he had to complete his surgery on.

Normally, such an experimental surgery would already be considered cruel to commit on a patient.

Although Orochimaru's behaviour made even that look merciful compared to what he ordered Mizuki to do.

The damn snake decided he wanted Mizuki to complete the surgery without any anesthetic.

As if to make things even worse, Orochimaru insisted that he must record the patient's' reaction to the surgery.

So to ensure that he would stay awake throughout the entire procedure, rather than giving the man anesthetics for the surgery, he was given adrenaline shots.