Saving the Uchiha clan starts with becoming the clan leader.

They are searching for a way to revive Lord Orochimaru.

With such effort and Haku's exceptional talent, it was not without its rewards. He did find and master the means to revive Lord Orochimaru, and had already put it into action. Karin and Jugo were acting on Haku's orders.

"Let's go! Let's go take a look."

Bai stood up.

Karin and I left the room filled with documents one after the other. Before leaving, we made sure to take one of the candles with us. Although the candlestick was designed to be waterproof, it's always better to be safe than sorry. If something were to happen and all the priceless documents in the room were burned to ashes, there would be no going back.

They didn't go too far.

They arrived at a much larger room.

"White."

Jugo greeted him.

The burly young man stood in the center of the room, overseeing two men whose mouths were gagged and whose hands and feet were bound.

"Shigego, thank you for your hard work."

Bai Wensheng said.

“It is my honor,” Jugo said very seriously.

Bai smiled helplessly, said nothing more, but circled the two tied-up men twice, looked them up and down, and asked, "You're the trash I asked you to find, right?"

"Neither of them are good people. One is a robber who killed several innocent pedestrians, and the other is an even bigger beast. He killed prostitutes to vent his anger after being betrayed by his wife. Although he was taken in by Lord Orochimaru, trash like this is basically used as experimental material."

Karin's words were filled with deep disgust for scumbags.

Past experiences,

This made her extremely disgusted with this kind of trash who liked to bully women.

"That's good."

Bai simply said something, then randomly dragged one out and onto the open ground next to him. Then... he escaped, picked up the prepared scroll, and took out a small tube of blood, splashing it onto the incantation on the scroll.

Immediately,

Place the scroll on the ground.

The blood splattered on the scroll began to flow as if it were alive, rushing rapidly towards the man who had been sacrificed, and in the blink of an eye, it outlined intricate spells beneath him.

"Next... is the final step."

Bai took a deep breath.

He began to form hand seals: Yin-Si-Xu-Chen. Normally, he could complete the four seals in less than a second, but this time he slowed down, forming one seal per second. Finally, he clapped his hands together, and the chakra within his body surged forth.

An unusual light emanated from beneath the man who was being offered as a sacrifice.

As if dust from another world had emerged, it clung to the man's body like mud, climbing upwards inch by inch, until it completely enveloped him. No matter how painfully he struggled and twisted, he could not shake off this dust.

When the dust completely covered the man,

Their appearance and posture have also undergone tremendous changes.

The disheveled, sunken-eyed middle-aged man who had been there before was gone. In his place was a young man with dark skin and six arms, full of vigor. He was none other than Kidomaru, who had given Yamanaka Fu and Aburame Shiguro a hard time on the battlefield in Amegakure!

"······white?"

Kidomaru, who had been resurrected from the underworld, was clearly somewhat bewildered.

I don't quite understand why I'm here.

Myself,

Wasn't he dead?

"I······"

“You are indeed dead, but I have now summoned your soul back from the underworld.” Bai stepped forward, staring at the motionless Kidomaru, and finally nodded slowly. There was nothing wrong; everything was just as Orochimaru-sama had written in his notes.

he,

He successfully performed the Impure World Reincarnation technique.

"what?"

Kidomaru's eyes widened.

Confused.

"Kidomaru, you bastard, shut up and stop disturbing Shiro's thinking." Karin shook her fist, issuing a blatant threat to Kidomaru.

"Although it's not a perfect resurrection technique, ... as long as Lord Orochimaru returns, he will surely find a way to truly revive me." Haku murmured to himself, reinforcing his confidence, completely unaware of the interaction between Karin and Kidomaru.

Admittedly, the Impure World Reincarnation technique is not a true resurrection.

but,

If it's Lord Orochimaru...

Given time to think and opportunities to practice, they will surely be able to do things that ordinary people cannot.

"call!"

Bai let out a long sigh of relief.

Now that the first experiment was successful, the next step... is to officially begin the process of reincarnating Lord Orochimaru. The other sacrifice is to be prepared for this.

"continue."

Bai walked over.

They seized the second sacrifice, dragged it to the nearby open space, and repeated the process as before. A similar light appeared beneath that sacrifice, as if dust from the underworld were also surging forth…

[Chapter 408. Orochimaru, who is oblivious to his own fate, and Deidara, who has fallen into the net]

A light appeared, dust surged, and everything was exactly the same scene as when Kidomaru was resurrected using the Impure World Reincarnation technique. Success seemed to be within reach, except that the dust, which appeared to come from the underworld, did not completely cover the offering; it only covered half of the offering's body.

Suddenly, the situation took a dramatic turn.

The dust from the underworld fell back down.

Everything returned to the way it was before the spell was cast.

"Goo-"

Karin swallowed hard.

This is--

Failed?

She quietly shifted her gaze to Bai, who was standing in front of the offering. However, to her surprise, she did not see a Bai with a glaring or dejected expression. Bai did not seem angry or too disappointed after failing to perform the Impure World Reincarnation technique. He stood there motionless, as if deep in thought.

"Kidomaru's revival proves that the Impure World Reincarnation technique is effective, and the previous steps went smoothly. Therefore, the only answer is..."

Bai closed his eyes.

The word "only" cannot be used.

There are two possible answers. The first is that the soul of the person being reincarnated is sealed, and the Edo Tensei cannot be completed without first removing the seal. The second is that the person being reincarnated did not actually die. Since they did not actually die, they could not be reincarnated.

Although in principle,

The second answer is probably impossible.

but--

That's Lord Orochimaru!

A man who defies common sense and pursues the art of immortality!

It's not surprising at all that he can do things that ordinary people can't do; in fact, it's normal. Seeing that the Impure World Reincarnation technique had failed, Haku closed his eyes and pondered, recalling the research materials on 'cursed seals' that he had seen in those documents.

The so-called curse seal,

It is a degraded imitation of immortal techniques.

For Haku, who had mastered the orthodox Ryuchi Cave Sage Techniques, the curse seal was completely meaningless. That thing could only give guys like Kidomaru an extra trump card, and its actual effect was just so-so, with a much smaller improvement than orthodox Sage Techniques.

but,

I recently studied the materials left behind by Lord Orochimaru.

He discovered that Lord Orochimaru had developed two types of cursed seals. One was the Earth Curse Seal, which was the cursed seal on Kidomaru and the others. The other was the Heaven Curse Seal. The Earth Curse Seal on Kidomaru and the others was much more complex than the one on Kidomaru and the others. There was not much information about the Heaven Curse Seal in the materials left behind by Lord Orochimaru.

It was only mentioned that the Heavenly Curse Mark is related to the soul, and ordinary people cannot withstand the erosion of the Heavenly Curse Mark. Over the years, only one person has survived after accepting the Heavenly Curse Mark.

That was a Konoha ninja named Anko.

He was a disciple Orochimaru took in when he was in Konoha.

"The Curse of Heaven..."

Bai then remembered something else.

Before he began practicing the Sage Mode at Ryuchi Cave, Lord Orochimaru asked him whether he wanted to risk his life to learn Sage Mode at Ryuchi Cave, or accept the Cursed Seal, which also carried risks but had a much lower mortality rate than learning Sage Mode at Ryuchi Cave.

He chose the former without any hesitation.

At that time, he believed that only by becoming truly powerful could he better help Lord Orochimaru. Therefore, he chose to go to Ryuchi Cave to learn orthodox Sage Mode instead of accepting the degraded version of the cursed seal. But now that I think about it... perhaps the cursed seal that Lord Orochimaru was talking about was not the Earth Curse Seal, but the Heaven Curse Seal?

And the Heavenly Curse Seal, which is related to the soul, is one of the backup plans left behind by Lord Orochimaru.

"However, Konoha..."

Bai finally frowned.

I wonder what Lord Orochimaru was thinking when he left his resurrected trump card in Konoha? Was he figuring out that the most dangerous place was actually the safest? But Lord Orochimaru seems to have overlooked one problem: Konoha is currently far too safe, so safe that Haku can't think of a way to find and take away that Konoha ninja named Anko.

No, you can't say that.

We still don't know what's going on with that Konoha ninja named Anko!

If the target will leave Konoha, then we only need to wait outside the village. The problem is that the target doesn't go out often and their activities are limited to Konoha. In that case, we might have to be prepared to be killed by the Sixth Hokage and sneak into Konoha to see if we can bring them out.

As for,

To cooperate with Obito Uchiha and use the Rinnegan to revive Lord Orochimaru... that would only work if Lord Orochimaru were truly dead! If Lord Orochimaru isn't completely dead, what's the point of reviving him? Unless he's truly out of options, he would never seek cooperation with Obito Uchiha.

Bai sighed deeply.