Hokage: Ryo's Path

Chapter 158: The Gedo Mazo’s Arm

“What else do you want, Ryo Yamanaka?” Madara sounded a bit impatient.

“Nothing much, I just want an arm of the big thing behind you.” Ryo Yamanaka pointed at the Gedo Mazo.

“What do you want with that?” Madara asked without hesitation. In fact, his heart was already quite turbulent.

“I felt such majestic vitality within that body. I have a Jutsu I’m working on, and I need this vitality.”

Madara stared at Ryo for quite some time, and finally agreed to his request.

Madara was sure that besides his and Zetsu, no one should know about the secret of the Juubi. He also needed Ryo in his new plan.

Nagato and Obito were much more important than one arm of the Gedo Mazo. After all, he was counting heavily on Nagato to resurrect him with the [Gedo: Rinne Tensei no Jutsu].

Madara was well aware after this encounter of Ryo’s potential. Being so strong at such a young age, he should be more reliable than just Zetsu in protecting Nagato.

And Obito was to be his heir and representative in the future. But at the moment, he was just too weak, and needed protection.

Once his plan is completed, he’ll have Obito with the Mangekyo, and Ryo protecting Nagato, and he should be completely relieved.

Ryo had guessed what Madara should be thinking about with his knowledge of the original story. Therefore, he dared to directly make this request.

As he expected, Madara agreed.

He didn’t act polite, and immediately jumped in and cut off the Gedo Mazo’s right arm with Chidori.

After sealing the arm, Ryo left the hole.

After he had just left, Zetsu revealed his head from the ground and asked Madara in shock: “Madara sama, how did you happily agreed to give Ryo Yamanaka the arm made out of the Hashirama’s cells?”

“I have the Cursed Seal Tag on this arm. Ryo should not find a way to have the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. If he directly integrates this arm, then he will only become my pawn later.” Madara explained.

“And what if he doesn’t directly use it?” White Zetsu asked.

“That means that we will have a Hashirama tier bodyguard to our pawns for free.”

“Really wise Madara Sama. But the Gedo ma....”

“Do not worry about that. Our plan will take a long time to be implemented. By that time, the arm will be regenerated.” After finishing his words, Madara closed his eyes and fell asleep.

His assessment of Ryo’s strength was very high. He indeed believed that he could grow to a level that’s not shy of that of Hashirama.

The Senju were the ones hated the most by Madara. After all, his brother’s life was taken by their hands. However, Madara did recognize their power.

Ryo didn’t know that Madara evaluated him so highly. After he followed Zetsu out, he immediately used his Teleportation Barrier and went to the Wave Country, and then rushed to the borders of the Fire Country.

The only thing on his mind was studying this arm with Orochimaru.

Ryo never thought of using the arm. To him, Madara was like a fisherman. He didn’t want fishes from him; he wanted to learn how to fish himself.

He already had an idea on the cells in this arm. His main purpose now was to find a way to make them.

With the Ice Lightning Chakra Mode and Ice teleportation, it didn’t take him long before reaching the borders of the Fire Country and then use the Teleportation Barrier to get immediately to the 3rd Training Ground.

Minato was there training with his team, and Shisui was also training with Kushina.

Seeing Ryo’s sudden emergence, none of them was surprised, as they were used to this from Minato. It didn’t matter if they had another one who occasionally pops out of nowhere.

“Ryo, you’re back.” Kushina rushed over and patted his shoulders.

“Sorry Ne san, I still have something to do. I’ll invite you over to Barbeque tomorrow morning!” As soon as he finished his words, Ryo disappeared.

The people in the training ground were used to this; they just sighed and got back to what they were doing.

Ryo had perceived that the Ice Scalpel he had once given to Anko was in Orochimaru’s lab.

“Who!” Ryo’s sudden appearance took Anko off guard, she took a fighting posture and then got back to normal when noticing it was Ryo.

“Couldn’t just... get in through the front door?” Anko said.

“Sorry, I’ll do so next time. I’m looking for Orochi san, where is he?”

Anko pointed to the stairs leading to the underground, and Ryo rushed there immediately.

Orochimaru was there conducting his research, and didn’t react to Ryo’s appearance.

Ryo knew the Sannin’s temper well, and didn’t bother him. Instead, he went straight to using his equipment to start his research on the arm.

After Orochimaru was through with the experiment at hand, he looked at Ryo. He had already noticed his arrival, but never had time to pay attention to him until now.

Ryo was using his equipment skillfully. Orochimaru looked at the milky white arm in Ryo’s hands, and interestedly cut off a portion of it to observe it.

Doing so, Orochimaru was shocked by the Chakra within this arm, which was very reminiscent of that in Hashirama’s cells.

Not long ago, Orochimaru got a few of Hashirama’s cells from Danzo, but those were quickly used up by him for research.

When Orochimaru went back to Danzo, the latter asked him to use Hashirama’s cells to make him an arm. If he was to agree, Danzo would continue to provide him with more cells.

Orochimaru did not immediately agree, Danzo’s motive behind asking for the arm should surely be related to his ambition of becoming Hokage. Orochimaru was still very respectful to his Sensei, and did not immediately agree.

While he was still undecided, Ryo gave him a great surprise, bringing him such a large arm full of Hashirama’s cells, enough to support his research for a long time.

But then, Orochimaru found that there was something wrong with the cells in this arm. Whether it was in activity or vitality, they were not as good as Danzo’s.

Just as Ryo finished his observations, Orochimaru didn’t tell him of this story about Danzo, and instead immediately asked: “Ryo kun, what is this arm?”

Ryo promised Madara not to expose his existence, so he skipped the part about how he found this arm and only described it.

After hearing him, Orochimaru excitedly licked his lips and started a new study with Ryo.

These specially treated cells were very exciting to him, as they should help him achieve great advancements in his studies.

Ryo was very concerned about conquering the Mangekyo’s price of use, that he didn’t pay much attention to that.

This way, before they realized anything, it went dark outside, and Ryo decided to leave Orochimaru’s lab to return home.