Renjiro's Four-Tomoe Sharingan, still spinning with unstable power, drank in every horrific detail: the fibrous, bark-like skin shifting like living fungus, the single and the root-like tendrils twitching feebly against the oppressive sealing energy. But his mind was reeling far faster.
'If Zetsu was here… witnessing what we did to Miyahira…'
The thought struck like a physical blow, momentarily overriding the Gates' agonising burn.
'It reports to Madara. It always reports.'
A cold dread, deeper and more primal than any fear of the Raikage, seeped into his bones. Madara Uchiha. The name itself was a tombstone, crushing his assumptions. He'd compartmentalised the legendary rogue, consigned him to the future, to the chaotic Fourth War era.
A grave error.
'With a pride like his…'
Renjiro's mental voice was a rasp of self-recrimination.
'He wouldn't just lay low. Not during a Great Shinobi War. Even 'dead', he'd be pulling strings, shaping chaos to his design. This war… it's his playground.'
The realization was a landslide, burying his previous calculations under tons of terrifying implication.
He racked his memories, frantic, like searching for a specific scroll in a collapsing archive.
'Kirigakure.'
The name surfaced, cold and sharp. 'The Yondaime Mizukage… Yagura. Puppeted by Obito, under Madara's command. Installed after the Third Great War.'
The timeline crystallised with horrifying clarity.
'They're not waiting. They're active NOW. Setting the stage. Their base… their operations… they have to be centred in or near Kiri.'
The implications spiralled, each more chilling than the last.
'The Konoha-Kiri alliance…'
Renjiro's gaze, outwardly fixed on the struggling Zetsu, turned inward, his Sharingan's processing power dissecting geopolitical strategy with brutal speed.
'Was this his scheme? Did Madara orchestrate this fragile truce?'
It made a twisted sense. Kiri and Kumo were historical enemies, their animosity as deep as the ocean trenches. An alliance between them was unthinkable. Konoha aligning with Kiri, however, was a desperate, pragmatic move against the Kumo-Iwa pressure.
'But is it genuine? Or is Kiri already Madara's puppet, making this alliance just another layer of his deception?'
He ran the scenarios.
'Option One: Madara's hold on Kiri isn't absolute yet. The alliance is a genuine, if risky, manoeuvre by the current Mizukage or his council, independent of the shadow. A move Madara would exploit, not necessarily orchestrate.'
A flicker of grim hope.
'Option Two: Worse. Far worse. Kiri is already compromised. The Mizukage, or key figures, are puppets. The alliance itself is Madara's design.'
The logic was terrifyingly elegant.
'He pushes Kumo and Iwa together, forcing Konoha into isolation. Then offers Konoha the 'lifeline' of a Kiri alliance. It appears rational, necessary. Konoha embraces it. And in doing so, walks willingly into the spider's parlour, believing it's found an ally, while Madara controls both sides of the board from the shadows of Kiri's mist.'
Renjiro felt a phantom chill, as if the clammy fog of the Land of Water was already coiling around him.
'Either way… Kiri is the nexus. The cancer is already spreading.'
His focus snapped back to the immediate threat trapped within his silver cage. The White Zetsu writhed, its movements less panicked now, more… testing, like a plant feeling for sunlight.
'How did I even sense it?' The question was a splinter in his mind.
'Zetsu are chameleons. Kage-level sensors struggle to find them without Senjutsu.' He recalled Yamato's explanations, the anime episodes showcasing their near-perfect camouflage.
'This one… it wasn't hiding poorly. It was gliding silently, merged with the earth. My chakra field shouldn't have picked up a distortion that subtle. I am not even sure if this is just one of its clones. Unless…'
A new wave of icy suspicion washed over him.
'Unless it wanted to be sensed. Unless this chase… this capture… was the trap all along. Lure the dangerous Konoha shinobi away from his team, isolate him, and… what?'
As if summoned by his spiralling paranoia, the White Zetsu stopped struggling. Its eyes swivelled, fixing directly on Renjiro's blazing Sharingan. Then, the lipless gash that served as a mouth did something horrifying. It stretched. Widened. Curled upwards at the corners.
A smile.
Grotesque, unnatural, devoid of any warmth or humour, a rictus grin carved into fungus-wood. It was an expression utterly alien on that face, chilling Renjiro to his core far more than any snarl.
"Renjiro Uzumaki," its voice emerged, a wet, gurgling rasp, like mud bubbling in a swamp. It echoed strangely within the humming barrier, devoid of inflexion yet carrying a disturbing note of… appreciation?
"I didn't think you would be able to sense me!"
The confirmation was a hammer blow. It knew him. Specifically. This wasn't a random observation. He was targeted. Before Renjiro could formulate a response, react, or even fully process the implications of its words, the Zetsu changed.
Its fibrous body didn't collapse; it liquefied. The pale bark-like skin dissolved into a viscous, churning white slime, like curdled milk mixed with tree sap.
"GLURGLE-SPLUTCH!"
Tendrils retracted, the single eye seeming to float for a moment within the morphing mass before being subsumed. In seconds, the vaguely humanoid figure was gone, replaced by a seething, amoebic blob of white goo, roughly man-sized, pulsating with a sickly inner light.
Renjiro's instincts screamed. He understood instantly. 'The barrier seals chakra flow, disrupts ninjutsu, contains physical matter… but can it stop something that fundamentally 'changes state'?'
The goo surged, not towards the chains themselves, but towards the compacted earth held within the barrier by the chains' energy. It flowed into the dirt, seeking cracks, pores, any microscopic pathway to seep through, to merge back with the bedrock beyond Renjiro's cage.
"Tch!" Renjiro snarled, the sound ripped from him by Gates-aggravated lungs and sheer fury. He couldn't allow escape. Not now. Not with what this thing represented. His will clamped down, a mental vice.
He poured more chakra, not into density, but into compression. The humming of the chains rose in pitch.
"WHIIIIINE!"
The dome visibly contracted the sphere of contained earth, shrinking rapidly from twenty meters to ten, then five. The earth within groaned under the immense pressure, compacting further, crushing potential escape routes. The space inside became claustrophobic, the air thick with dust and the oppressive, ozone-heavy energy of the barrier.
The seething white goo, halfway merged with the compacted soil, recoiled as the space constricted violently. It seemed to strain against the sudden pressure, its surface bubbling furiously. That gurgling voice emerged again, not from a mouth, but seemingly vibrating from the mass itself, carrying a distorted hint of that same unnerving appreciation. "Impressive barrier! Adamantine Sealing Chains… truly an Uzumaki masterpiece. To manipulate them with such speed and precision… fascinating!"
Renjiro ignored the backhanded compliment, his focus absolute, sweat pouring down his crimson skin, mixing with the steam still venting from his pores. The Gates' toll was a symphony of agony, a counterpoint to the mental storm.
'Why isn't it panicking? Why the commentary?'
The goo ceased its futile straining against the compressed earth. It pulled back, coalescing slightly in the centre of the confined, pressurised space within the chains, mere feet from Renjiro. The pulsating light within it intensified, shifting to an almost hungry gleam. The gurgling voice took on a new tone – predatory, chillingly matter-of-fact.
"Since I cannot escape through the barrier…" the goo seemed to ripple, forming a pseudopod that pointed vaguely towards Renjiro, "...you will be my way out."
Confusion warred with dread.
'What?'
Renjiro's Sharingan blazed, analysing the chakra flux within the goo. It wasn't preparing an external attack. The energy was coiling inwards, priming for… absorption? Assimilation? Before his enhanced cognition could fully parse the intent, the Zetsu acted.
"SHLUCK-SPLAT!"
The white goo didn't lunge; it exploded outward. Not in a destructive blast, but in a sudden, viscous wave, expanding like a net made of liquid fungus. It moved with shocking speed, bypassing the space between them in an eyeblink, aimed not to strike, but to engulf. To coat Renjiro entirely.
His body, honed by Gates and Sharingan, reacted on pure instinct. He twisted, a blur of crimson motion, trying to evade the tidal wave of pale sludge. But the space was too confined, the attack too unexpected in its form. The leading edge of the goo splattered against his left arm and shoulder.
"SPLORTCH!"
The sensation was instantaneous and horrifying. It wasn't just cold and wet; it was alive. It clung with impossible tenacity, like superglue mixed with acid and sentience.
He felt a thousand microscopic points of pressure – not pain, yet, but an invasive presence trying to penetrate his skin, his chakra pathways. A terrifying numbness radiated from the contact point, followed by a vile, pulling sensation, as if the goo was trying to drink him, to dissolve him from the outside in.
'Not escape…'
A primal, visceral understanding, ripped from the depths of his reincarnated soul's knowledge, exploded in his mind:
'This bastard wants to devour me!'