"I'll go with Shisui to deal with them. Minato-san, you stay here," Kagetsu said inside the cave, addressing Namikaze Minato and Tsunade.
He was surprised by the sudden attack.
Could it be that Madara had already chosen a successor? Or was there another plan at play?
By all logic, Madara should either be dead by now, or at the very end of his life.
"Be careful!" Minato didn't stop him. He understood Kagetsu's real reason for asking him to stay.
Aside from being Kushina's husband, Minato's Flying Thunder God technique could quickly teleport Tsunade and Kushina to another hidden base within the village if necessary.
But if the enemy had managed to find this place directly, it was obvious that information about Kushina had already been leaked.
This location was no longer safe—and the backup base might not be either.
"I'll leave a clone here to maintain the Inverse Mountain Crystal Technique," Kagetsu said, nodding as he formed a hand seal and left behind a shadow clone to uphold the barrier built by the technique.
Then, with Minato's Flying Thunder God, Kagetsu and Shisui were teleported out of the barrier.
"This is... unreal!"
Outside the Four Violet Flames Formation, Shisui's face showed clear surprise as he saw the scene.
Hundreds—maybe even thousands—of White Zetsu were launching jutsu at the barrier.
Judging from the power of the jutsu they released, each one at least had the chakra and destructive force of a Chūnin.
In the shinobi world, that was already a force to be reckoned with. Some small nations wouldn't be able to resist such strength at all.
Even though Shisui had seen White Zetsu more than once, every time, they left him with a new sense of awe and unease.
"Lord Kagetsu!" an Anbu member suddenly appeared in front of him.
Right now, the ANBU were only in a defensive stance. They could only wait until the barrier was broken before confronting the hundreds of White Zetsu waiting outside.
Looking at the situation, the barrier being breached was very possible.
The war jutsu released by over a thousand chunin held enough destructive power to shake the Four Violet Flames Formation maintained by the ANBU.
...
Konoha Prison.
Pools of fresh blood stained the floor, and the corpses of prison guards lay scattered.
Several White Zetsu used the cover of night, relying on their stealth and transformation abilities, to silently assassinate any Konoha ninja they encountered.
Caught completely off guard and without time to prepare, the prison guards barely resisted before most of them were replaced by imposter White Zetsu.
However, the scent of blood and the growing abnormality eventually caught the attention of the remaining guards, alerting them that invaders were present.
The once silent and solemn prison instantly erupted into chaos.
Yet even though the remaining guards noticed the danger, under White Zetsu's surprise attacks, they couldn't mount an effective defense or counterattack.
What shocked them even more was that their once familiar comrades suddenly wore entirely different "faces."
Deep inside the prison...
In a cell covered with sealing jutsu marks, a thin man slowly raised his head. His blood-red eyes glowed with an eerie light in the darkness.
"Who's there?"
"Oh? You noticed me? Your perception is quite sharp!" A slightly exaggerated voice echoed from outside the cell.
A black-and-white humanoid figure, shaped like a pitcher plant, emerged from the ground.
"White Zetsu, huh?"
The man's lips twisted into an awkward smile as he looked at the strange creature standing before him — a humanoid monster split into black and white.
"Huh? You actually know who we are?" the white half exclaimed in surprise.
"Looks like even in this prison, you have your own sources of information. Is it from within the Uchiha, or are your subordinates feeding you intel?"
"Idiot! Isn't it obvious?" the black half snapped harshly.
"Stick to the main point! Do you realize how difficult it was for us to infiltrate Konoha today? We had to take advantage of the special occasion — the day when all of Konoha's power is focused on the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki giving birth."
Black Zetsu scolded his white counterpart.
There was a time when Konoha had no defenses against them.
Using Mayfly Technique and their knowledge of Konoha's barrier systems, they could freely bypass every defense, treating the village like their own backyard.
But after their White Zetsu bodies had been discovered and placed on the experimental tables in the Technology Development Department, sneaking into Konoha was no longer so simple.
Or rather, it became a one-way trip — like throwing meat buns to a dog. No one ever returned.
Some of the newly created White Zetsus even fell victim to traps meant for fishing them out.
After losing contact with multiple clones in a row, Madara and Black Zetsu quickly realized the truth — Konoha had developed a way to detect them.
Especially after that, Konoha's barriers began undergoing large-scale reconstruction under the combined efforts of Kushina and the Technology Development Department.
All the old loopholes were gradually sealed up.
Now, Konoha has become a forbidden zone for White Zetsu.
This made it extremely difficult for Zetsu to carry out some of Madara's orders.
And ever since their collaborator Shimura Danzo was placed under strict surveillance, gathering any intel from inside Konoha had become nearly impossible.
"Did Lord Madara send you?" the man asked.
"Lord Madara?" The dark figure responded, his voice low. "Uchiha Setsuna, so you really are the clansman who inherited Lord Madara's will! Let me ask you—do you want to serve him? To change the Leaf Village… and even this rotten shinobi world?"
Uchiha Setsuna's Sharingan spun rapidly in his eyes. The three tomoe rotated into a perfect circle.
"Why not?" he said.
He stood up from the darkness of the prison cell and stepped into the light at the front of the door, revealing a lean, sharp face that carried both coldness and traces of weariness.
"This place, Konoha... I've had enough of it. It makes me sick," Setsuna said.
"Believe me—under Lord Madara, you'll gain everything you ever wanted," Black Zetsu said as he stepped forward and tore off the sealing talisman stuck to the cell door.
"Let's save the talk for later. I'll speak with Lord Madara in person. Right now, I need to retrieve something of mine," Setsuna said as he calmly walked out of the cell now that the barrier had been broken.
"Is it really that important? We've already alarmed Konoha. I've made arrangements to distract them, but if you take too long, we could run into trouble," Black Zetsu said with a frown, glancing at Setsuna beside him.
"Trust me. It's not just me—Lord Madara will need that power too," Setsuna said as he made his way out of the prison.
"What is it?" White Zetsu asked as he followed along, his tone filled with curiosity.
He was a newer, more advanced version of White Zetsu—a mutated creation born from the power of the God Tree and the First Hokage's cells.
Not as erratic as the original Tobi, but far stronger than the mass-produced White Zetsus.
"It's a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan."
****
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