Chapter 256: Deformities

Chapter 256: Chapter 256: Deformities

Staring at the bizarre, malformed clones floating inside the large nutrient tanks before him, Hyuga Kagami felt like crying, but no tears would come.

"These Uchiha cells are freaking toxic..."

Over the past several days, under the pretexts of sparring, giving pointers, and various other excuses, Kagami had racked his brain for every possible opportunity and finally managed to obtain cell samples from more than a dozen members of the Uchiha clan, including Itachi and Sasuke.

Once he had obtained the Uchiha cell samples, Kagami immediately began conducting cell fusion experiments in his laboratory.

After tens of thousands of repeated fusion attempts—and an enormous expenditure of manpower and resources—Kagami finally managed to obtain three sets of cloned embryos that barely survived the rejection reaction.

Just when Kagami thought he had finally succeeded, however, reality taught him a cruel lesson.

All three embryos developed unexpected deformities after being cultivated.

The first clone had a grotesquely twisted body, with its facial features and limbs all growing in the wrong places...

The second was nothing more than an ugly lump of flesh...

As for the third, it had grown two heads and seven arms...

Yet only a single leg...

Staring at the monsters floating inside the large nutrient tanks, Kagami felt his heart bleeding.

The cultivation fluid used in cell fusion experiments was extremely complex, requiring extracts refined from numerous rare and expensive medicinal ingredients. As a result, its cost was extraordinarily high, and the tens of thousands of fusion experiments Kagami had conducted had already exhausted nearly his entire stockpile of medicinal materials.

Even if Kagami wanted to continue experimenting, his nearly depleted reserves wouldn’t allow him to keep burning through resources so recklessly.

"Heh. I thought before that my cells simply weren’t compatible with Shisui’s. Who would’ve thought that after going through all these experiments, it turns out Shisui is the only Uchiha whose cells can barely fuse with mine..."

After sighing to himself, Kagami slowly shifted his gaze toward the large nutrient tank at the very end of the laboratory.

The clone being cultivated inside that tank was none other than the female clone grown from the damaged embryo that had previously resulted from the successful fusion of Kagami’s and Shisui’s cells.

There was no questioning the appearance of the Hyuga clan.

The men were all dignified and handsome, while most of the women were graceful and elegant. Kagami himself might not have been devastatingly handsome or impossibly dashing, but at the very least, he could certainly be described as refined, well-featured, and gentle in appearance.

The Uchiha bloodline was equally renowned for producing handsome men and beautiful women.

However, most Uchiha men carried themselves with an overbearing air. And because they were members of a dōjutsu Kekkei Genkai clan, their gazes tended to be exceptionally sharp, giving them a somewhat dark and intimidating appearance.

As for the female clone inside the large nutrient tank, which had been created by fusing Kagami’s and Shisui’s cells, she possessed both the elegance of the Hyuga clan and the sharpness of the Uchiha clan.

As a result, not only was the female clone extraordinarily beautiful, but her entire presence was remarkably distinctive as well.

She possessed an indescribable heroic spirit, yet at the same time carried an air of dignified, elegant nobility.

Hyuga Kagami wasn’t a superficial person, so the female clone’s extraordinarily outstanding appearance didn’t cause even the slightest ripple in his heart.

As a researcher, Kagami despised any unexpected variables in his experiments.

An accident meant an unforeseen deviation from the plan, and the female clone inside the large nutrient tank was precisely that—an accident, and one filled with uncertainties.

Given the current circumstances, Kagami had no way of determining what unknown effects this female clone might have on his future Kekkei Mōra Plan.

Furthermore, even before cultivation, the embryo from which this female clone had developed had already suffered severe damage. As a result, the physical strength of this female clone was clearly inferior to that of his Water Release clone.

That also meant developing this female clone would be far more difficult than developing the Water Release clone had been.

It was because of all these factors that Kagami had always felt a certain degree of resistance toward the female clone before him.

However, failure after failure in his cell fusion experiments had forced him to recognize reality clearly.

With his current cell-fusion technology, he was still incapable of creating a truly perfect clone that successfully incorporated the Uchiha bloodline.

Kagami removed the female clone from the large nutrient tank and placed it on the operating table.

Without much hesitation, he immediately activated the Tenseigan’s Soul Descent Technique and entered the female clone lying on the table.

"Whew..."

Abruptly sitting upright, Kagami spent a moment feeling out his new body before jumping down from the operating table.

Walking naked over to the mirror, Kagami calmly began moving his body, carefully observing the changes in the female clone’s muscles reflected in the mirror.

Although it felt slightly strange, the initial sluggishness Kagami experienced upon entering the clone for the first time was nowhere near as severe as he had imagined.

On the contrary, this clone seemed remarkably receptive to his soul.

In truth, this wasn’t particularly strange.

In the original timeline, when Orochimaru used the forbidden technique Living Corpse Reincarnation, the first body he chose wasn’t that of a male ninja, but that of a female ninja.

The reason Orochimaru made that choice was precisely because the female ninja’s body was unexpectedly compatible with his soul. As a result, after completing Living Corpse Reincarnation, Orochimaru retained almost all of his strength.

That was also why, during the Konoha Crush, Orochimaru dared to confront the Third Hokage while inhabiting a female body.

Later, Orochimaru was severely wounded by the Third Hokage and was forced to abandon that female body. When Sasuke failed to arrive in time, Orochimaru hurriedly reincarnated into the body of a male ninja named Gen’yūmaru.

Yet ironically, the male body produced an extraordinarily violent rejection reaction.

Orochimaru, whose soul had already lost the use of both arms, suffered yet another devastating blow to his vitality. His combat strength fell to a mere fraction of what it had once been, and most of the time, he could only suppress his condition with medication while remaining bedridden.

Ultimately, he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the still-inexperienced Sasuke, personally demonstrating the meaning of trying to steal the chicken only to lose the rice used to lure it.

From this, it was clear that the sex of a body had little to do with its compatibility with a soul.

After spending some time adapting his soul’s control over the body, Kagami widened his eyes at the mirror.

The eyes within this female clone’s sockets were still the same incomplete Byakugan that his Water Release clone had originally possessed.

However, once Kagami’s soul descended into the body, the incomplete Byakugan fused with the power of Kagami’s soul and transformed into a normal Byakugan.

"Looks like the Uchiha bloodline hasn’t affected my Byakugan at all!"

Kagami could understand why.

After all, within the embryo of this female clone, Kagami’s own cellular tissue accounted for 99% of its composition, while Shisui’s cellular tissue accounted for only 1%.

And the Hyuga bloodline was by no means inferior to that of the Uchiha clan. With such an overwhelming ratio, the eyes that developed within the female clone’s sockets would naturally be the Byakugan of the Hyuga clan.

At that moment, Kagami murmured to himself,

"I wonder just how much of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan’s power this clone will be able to bring out after they’re transplanted into it..."