"HISSSSSSSS!!!" The air screamed, not the roar of fire, but the sound of existence being digested. Renjiro stood at the epicentre, a pillar
"HISSSSSSSS!!!" The air screamed, not the roar of fire, but the sound of existence being digested. Renjiro stood at the epicentre, a pillar
"HISSSSSSSS!!!"
The air screamed, not the roar of fire, but the sound of existence being digested. Renjiro stood at the epicentre, a pillar of emerald annihilation. His Mangekyo Sharingan blazed with terrifying focus. Before him, the White Zetsu's form was unravelling.
The transformation was instantaneous, horrifying. Where the white-orange inferno had merely scorched and repelled, the green fire consumed. It clung like phosphorescent acid, etching away the hardened crust Zetsu had formed in milliseconds.
"Mangekyo…"
The gurgling voice emerged from the dissolving mass, distorted by agony and profound shock, yet carrying a sliver of… recognition? Respect?
"So young… awakened in such a crucible… remarkable!"
Inside Zetsu's dissolving consciousness, panic warred with millennia of ingrained caution.
'Mangekyo! This changes everything!'
The thought was a seismic shift. Renjiro wasn't just a powerful anomaly; he was a potential key, a piece on the board Madara himself might have placed. Devouring him blindly… reckless. Dangerous. Information was paramount now. He needed to escape, to report this to the Main Body, to Madara. But the barrier… the chains… how to force the Uzumaki to drop it? Threat? Bargain? The green fire seared his very essence, making coherent strategy agonising.
Renjiro remained a statue of agonised concentration. The Gates screamed in every muscle fibre, tendons threatening to snap. His suppressed Uzumaki healing, choked by Zetsu's invasive field, offered no reprieve from the self-inflicted inferno or the numbing cold creeping from the dissolving goo still clinging to his limbs.
His skin blistered beneath the spectral green light, the pain a white-hot counterpoint to the chilling numbness spreading from Zetsu's touch. Yet, his Mangekyo burned with unwavering intensity, channelling the devastating green flames with terrifying precision. Every shred of willpower was bent on a single task: total annihilation.
'Burn it. Burn it all to ashes. Leave nothing. Not a molecule. If Madara learns of me now…'
The thought was ice in his veins, colder than the green fire. 'This pain… this risk… it's the price. Silence is worth any cost.'
"This fire…" Zetsu's voice gurgled, weaker now, the brave front cracking under the onslaught.
The green flames weren't just destroying his form; they were draining him. He felt it – a terrifying suction, pulling at the very core of his chakra, the energy that sustained him being siphoned away to fuel the ravenous green conflagration.
"Not just destruction… absorption too? Clever… terribly clever! But futile! My essence is… boundless!" The taunt rang hollow, desperate.
He was shrinking, his mass visibly diminishing, the edges dissolving faster than the centre. He racked his dissolving mind.
'How do I stop him?'
Renjiro ignored the taunts. His world had narrowed to the chakra flow: containing the Gates' backlash, sustaining the Mangekyo's horrific drain, fueling the green flames, and fighting the insidious numbness Zetsu had inflicted.
Seeing his form diminish relentlessly, desperation ignited a final, audacious gambit within Zetsu.
"Fine! If I cannot devour you… I'll take your prize! Those eyes… Master will reward me handsomely for a new Mangekyo!"
Before the final word faded, the central mass of Zetsu, still partially shielded by its densest core, exploded not outwards, but inwards – towards Renjiro's face. Despite the green fire licking at it, causing violent sizzling and dissolution, a concentrated tendril of pale, resilient goo, hardened by sheer will and the remnants of its core chakra, shot forth like a striking viper.
It bypassed the wall of green flame through sheer, suicidal focus, sacrificing outer layers instantly to the fire.
"SPLAT-GLURGLE!"
It struck Renjiro full in the face.
Cold, wet, invasive numbness engulfed his vision, his nose, his mouth. It wasn't just covering; it was sealing, pressing with suffocating force. The numbness intensified a hundredfold, a terrifying void spreading across his senses. Panic, pure and primal, lanced through Renjiro's focus.
'My eyes!'
The thought was a scream. With his healing suppressed, the consequences were dire. If Zetsu ripped them out now…
'Would they regenerate? Can I grow new ones?'
The uncertainty was a fresh wave of terror, momentarily fracturing his iron control.
The goo on his face crawled, seeking purchase around his eye sockets. He felt the vile, probing pressure intensify, like cold roots trying to worm beneath his eyelids. Simultaneously, the parts still dissolving on his limbs renewed their invasive push, capitalizing on his momentary distraction. The numbness threatened to spread to his neck, his core.
"NO!"
Renjiro's will slammed down. The Mangekyo flared behind the suffocating goo, its bloody light visible as a dull crimson glow through the pale sludge.
"BURN!"
The mental command was a detonation of pure, annihilating intent.
The green flames surrounding his body didn't just intensify; they erupted. Fueled by Renjiro's desperation, his fear, and the stolen chakra from Zetsu itself, they turned from hungry to ravenous.
"HISSSSSSS-CRACKLE!"
The temperature within the barrier spiked impossibly higher. The air itself seemed to ignite in brief, green flashes. The chains, already humming under strain, began to glow. Not cherry red, but a dangerous, eye-searing white-hot.
"SCREEEEEEEE!"
The adamantine silver started to warp, thin tendrils of molten metal beginning to drip like fiery tears.
"PLINK… PLINK…"
The barrier was consuming itself.
Zetsu, enveloping Renjiro's face, felt the change instantly. The sizzling intensified to a shriek.
"SKREEEEEEE!"
The goo blackened, not just on the surface, but throughout. The probing tendrils around Renjiro's eyes shrivelled and retracted like burned worms. The numbness receded slightly, replaced by a searing agony as the green fire ate deeper into Zetsu's core essence. The fear he'd felt before blossomed into pure, unadulterated terror.
'Too hot! Too fast! Must escape! NOW!'
He tried to pull back, to disengage from Renjiro's face and flow away, seeking any crack in the melting chains, any fissure in the superheated earth held within. But Renjiro wouldn't allow it. Even blinded, choked, his Mangekyo sense painted the world in chakra – a seething mass of green intertwined with his own volcanic crimson and the dying emerald of the flames.
He felt Zetsu's panic, his attempt to retreat. With a guttural roar muffled by the goo covering his mouth, Renjiro pushed. The green fire surged inwards, wrapping around the retreating Zetsu mass like emerald pythons, holding it fast, pulling it back towards the source of its annihilation.
It was a race against time and dissolution. Zetsu shrieked silently, thrashing within the emerald coils, his form diminishing rapidly, blackening, crumbling into ash that was instantly consumed by the hungry fire. Renjiro held on, pouring every last drop of chakra, every ounce of will, into the incineration.
"FZZZZZT-POP!"
A final, soundless implosion of chakra. The central mass of White Zetsu – the core intelligence, the observer, the devourer – vanished. Dissolved into nothingness. Consumed utterly by the ravenous green flames. The goo covering Renjiro's face lost its cohesion, sloughing off in blackened, ashen clumps, revealing his blistered, strained face beneath. The numbness receded like a tide, leaving raw, burning pain in its wake.
The green flames flickered violently, starved of their primary fuel. Renjiro's Mangekyo spun erratically, the drain catastrophic. The Gates' backlash hit him like a collapsing mountain.
"HRRK!"
He choked, blood – bright red against his ashen skin – bubbling from his lips. His legs buckled.
"SHHHHHHINK"
The Adamantine Chains, deprived of sustained chakra and critically weakened by the heat, retracted with a final, mournful, dissolving into silver motes.
Renjiro crashed to his knees on the scorched, glassy ground where the barrier had been, the impact jarring his broken body.
"THUD."
He gasped, ragged, wet breaths tearing at his throat, each one a lance of agony. Steam still rose faintly from his crimson skin. His vision swam, dark spots dancing at the edges. He squeezed his eyes shut, the Mangekyo deactivating, leaving only the normal, exhausted blackness behind his eyelids.
'Done. Gone. Ashes.'
He forced his eyes open, blinking against the gritty ash falling like black snow. He scanned the devastation, his normal Sharingan activating sluggishly, confirming the absence of the pale horror. Relief, profound and bone-deep, threatened to overwhelm him. He'd paid a terrible price, but silence was preserved.
His gaze swept over the glassy depression… and snagged.
Near the edge, half-buried in the still-cooling slag, was a small patch of… something. Not ash. Not dirt. It was black, obsidian-like, smooth and featureless, about the size of his palm.
Renjiro's ragged breathing hitched. His blood ran cold, colder than the green fire had been. Every instinct screamed danger. This wasn't residue. This wasn't ash. This was something else. Something… more. His exhausted mind, scraping the bottom of his transmigrated knowledge, recoiled in dawning, horrified recognition.
"Don't tell me this is…"