Chapter 28: Rumors of Monsters
Rain fell in a steady, monotonous drone, streaking down the windows of the Akatsuki's main hideout in Amegakure. Inside, the cavernous chamber was dark, the only light coming from the ethereal, flickering holograms of its members, projected onto the fingers of the Gedo Statue. The atmosphere was unusually subdued, a palpable tension hanging in the air.
Two of the fingers were conspicuously empty. The projections for Hidan and Kakuzu had not appeared.
Pain stood at the center, his Rinnegan cold and impassive. "The meeting is convened," he announced, his voice echoing in the vast chamber.
Deidara's hologram was the first to speak, his voice still laced with a bitter, defeated edge. "Sasori... Danna is gone, hm. The Jinchuriki got him."
"We are aware of your failure, Deidara," Pain stated, his tone leaving no room for argument. "And the loss of one of our most valuable members."
Deidara shot back, his frustration boiling over. "That brat... he wasn't human! He had some kind of armor you couldn't even see, and he cut Danna's masterpieces apart like they were nothing! And my C0... my ultimate art... he just... he cut it in half!" The memory was still a raw, unbelievable wound to his artistic soul.
"Silence," Pain commanded. "Your excuses are irrelevant." He then turned his attention to two other figures. "Itachi. Kisame. Your report."
Kisame's hologram grinned, though it lacked its usual boisterous energy. "We located the Three-Tails Jinchuriki's last known location in Kirigakure, just as planned."
"And?" Pain pressed.
"We ran into interference," Itachi stated, his voice a calm, even monotone. "The 'Ghost of the Mist,' Gin Ichimaru."
"He was more than just interference," Kisame growled, a flicker of genuine anger in his eyes. "That creepy smile of his... and that sword. It's not a normal weapon. It moves faster than anything I've ever seen. No hand seals, no chakra build-up. It just... extends."
Itachi continued the report, his voice never wavering. "His abilities are unorthodox. He possesses techniques that do not use hand seals and are not Ninjutsu as we know it. He was able to overwhelm both of us and cast some kind of unknown spell of immense destructive power that forced our retreat." He paused, a rare moment of introspection. "Had he not been toying with us, the outcome might have been... different."
The chamber fell silent. For Itachi Uchiha to admit to being so thoroughly outmaneuvered by an opponent with an unknown power system was a testament to the immense threat Gin posed.
Konan's paper form flickered. "And what of Hidan and Kakuzu? Their mission was to capture the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki in Takigakure. They have not checked in."
"Good riddance," Deidara muttered under his breath.
"Perhaps the cheap old man finally got tired of Hidan's yammering and killed him for good," Kisame chuckled.
"Kakuzu would not fail to report in," Pain stated, his Rinnegan narrowing. "Their silence is... concerning."
Days passed. The rain in Amegakure continued to fall. Another meeting was convened. The fingers where Hidan and Kakuzu's projections should have been remained dark and empty. The unease among the members was now a palpable thing.
Deidara was still recovering. Itachi and Kisame were laying low. Sasori was confirmed dead. Now, two more members were completely off the grid. In the span of a week, the Akatsuki's active roster had been crippled.
"This is not a coincidence," Konan said, her voice sharp. "Three of our teams have been engaged. Sasori is dead. Hidan and Kakuzu are missing. Itachi and Kisame were forced to retreat. The only common denominator is a new, unprecedented level of resistance from individuals with unknown, non-chakra-based abilities."
Pain's expression was grim. "Kakuzu is a man driven by greed and pragmatism. He would not allow himself to be killed easily. And Hidan's immortality makes him a difficult opponent to neutralize permanently."
The white half of Zetsu's form spoke up cheerfully, "We did feel something super weird a few days ago! Over in the Land of Waterfalls!"
The black half elaborated, its voice a low, sinister rasp. "There was a spike. A massive surge of energy. It was brief, but immense. It didn't feel like chakra. It was... heavy. Crushing. It felt like the very air was screaming. It was far greater than any Jinchuriki's."
Pain's gaze was fixed on the empty fingers of the statue. The loss of members was an inconvenience. But the silence, the complete lack of information, and these reports of unknown energy sources... it was a variable he could not calculate. A team as powerful and resilient as the Zombie Duo shouldn't just vanish without a trace.
"Zetsu," Pain commanded, his voice leaving no room for argument.
"Yes?" both halves replied in unison.
"Go to the Land of Waterfalls. Find Hidan and Kakuzu. Or find what's left of them." His Rinnegan seemed to glow in the dim light. "I want to know what kind of monster, with what kind of power, could make our immortals disappear."
Zetsu's form sank into the ground, vanishing without a sound, on its way to uncover the horrifying truth waiting in Unohana's quiet little garden.
____
Chapter 28, Part 2: The Garden of Silence
Days later, the Land of Waterfalls was as serene as ever. Rain-heavy clouds clung to the mountains, and the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and pine. To the casual observer, it was a land at peace.
But Zetsu was not a casual observer.
He moved not through the trees, but through them. His form, a grotesque fusion of black and white, rose from the base of a towering cedar, his Venus flytrap-like extensions parting as he surveyed the area. He was a being of the earth, and the earth told him its stories.
"So noisy..." the white half complained cheerfully. "The mission to get the Seven-Tails was supposed to be easy! Hidan was supposed to do his stabby-stabby thing, Kakuzu was supposed to complain about money, and then we'd have a new pet for the big statue!"
"Silence," the black half rasped, its voice a low, analytical growl. "Their chakra signatures vanished from this area three days ago. Completely. As if they were snuffed out. But there is no sign of a large-scale battle. No craters. No widespread destruction. It is... clean. Too clean."
Zetsu sank back into the earth, his presence vanishing completely. He traveled underground, a silent, unseen predator following the faint, residual trail of Hidan and Kakuzu's chakra. The trail was old, faded, but it led him with unerring accuracy towards a secluded clearing on the outskirts of the village.
He emerged again, this time peering through the dense foliage of a bush. Before him was a simple, traditional house, surrounded by a meticulously raked zen garden. It was a picture of tranquility.
"Ooooh, a pretty house!" White Zetsu chirped. "Maybe they stopped for tea! Do you think they have dango?"
"Their trail ends here," Black Zetsu stated, ignoring his other half. "And there is another chakra signature inside. The Seven-Tails Jinchuriki. Fū."
"She's just sitting there!" White Zetsu was practically bouncing with excitement. "She's not captured, she's not fighting... she's just... talking to someone. An old lady. This is a weird mission."
"The Jinchuriki is here," Black Zetsu analyzed, his mind processing the variables. "Hidan and Kakuzu's trail leads here. But they are not here. This does not compute. Did they fail and retreat without reporting? Unlikely. Kakuzu is too proud. Did they succeed and leave with the Jinchuriki? Impossible. She is right there."
A new, horrifying possibility began to form in his cold, ancient mind.
"We must get closer," Black Zetsu decided. "There is a presence here I cannot read. An energy that is not chakra. It is... quiet. Deceptively so."
He began to merge with the root system of a tree that grew close to the house, his consciousness seeping through the earth, under the veranda, his senses extending into the very foundation of the home. He needed to see. He needed to understand.
As his senses passed through the wooden floorboards, he found them.
Hidan and Kakuzu.
They were in a dark, cool room beneath the main house. A cellar, perhaps. They were alive. Their chakra signatures were present, albeit faint and strangely... placid.
But they were not moving.
"Hey! I found them!" White Zetsu cheered internally. "They're just sleeping! Lazy bums! We should draw on their faces!"
"No," Black Zetsu's voice was a low, chilling whisper. "They are not sleeping."
Through his connection to the earth, he could feel them. Hidan was strapped to a large, wooden table. His eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling. His mouth was slightly agape. He was breathing, his chest rising and falling in a steady, metronomic rhythm. But he was utterly, completely still. Intravenous drips, filled with a strange, glowing green fluid, were attached to his arms, likely a powerful sedative mixed with a nutrient solution.
Kakuzu was in a similar state in the corner of the room, propped up against a wall. His stitches were gone, his body a seamless, unnaturally whole thing. His eyes were also open, also vacant. The masks that had once held his precious hearts were laid out neatly on a tray beside him, inert and lifeless.
They were not prisoners. They were not injured. They were... specimens. Preserved. Maintained. Like butterflies pinned to a board.
A cold, unfamiliar sensation trickled through Black Zetsu's being. It was a feeling he had not experienced in centuries.
It was dread.
"What happened to them...?" he transmitted to his other half, his voice trembling with a hint of horror.
"I don't know!" White Zetsu's cheerful tone was gone, replaced by a frightened whisper. "They look like... dolls. The old lady... she turned them into dolls!"
Suddenly, a new sound reached Zetsu's senses. A soft, feminine voice from the room above. The voice of the old woman.
"Fū, my dear, your chakra flow is becoming unstable. You are agitated. Calm yourself."
And then, another voice. The voice of the Jinchuriki.
"I'm sorry, Unohana-sama," Fū's voice trembled. "I just... I can't stop hearing it. The screaming. It stopped a few days ago, but... I can still hear it in my head."
A cold, serene smile was the only response.
Zetsu froze. The screaming. Unohana. The name clicked. The final piece of the horrifying puzzle fell into place. The source of the immense, non-chakra energy spike. The reason the Jinchuriki was here. The reason the immortal duo was now a pair of living corpses in the basement.
It was her. The old woman.
"We have to leave," Black Zetsu hissed, his entire being screaming at him to retreat. "Now. Report to Pain. The mission is a failure. The target is... unacquirable."
He began to retract his presence, pulling back through the earth, desperate to escape the tranquil, horrifying garden and the smiling demon who tended to it. He had found Hidan and Kakuzu. And he wished, with every fiber of his being, that he hadn't.
____
Chapter 28, Part 3: A Warning in the Silence
Zetsu pulled his consciousness back with the panicked speed of a man yanking his hand from a fire. The connection to the house, to the dark cellar, to the living dolls that were once Hidan and Kakuzu, was severed.
He reformed his physical body miles away, erupting from the trunk of an ancient, moss-covered tree in the deep forest, his two halves gasping as if they had just surfaced from a drowning.
"She heard us! I think she heard us!" White Zetsu shrieked, his half of the body trembling. "Her smile! Did you feel it?! It was like she knew we were listening the whole time!"
"Be silent," Black Zetsu commanded, though his own voice lacked its usual unshakable authority. He pressed himself against the tree, his senses stretched to their absolute limit, scanning the entire region for any sign of pursuit. There was nothing. Only the gentle, indifferent sounds of the forest.
The silence was, somehow, even more terrifying than a chase would have been.
He replayed the information in his mind, his analytical process tainted by a cold, primal fear. Hidan, the immortal zealot who reveled in pain. Kakuzu, the five-hearted monster who had lived for nearly a century. Both were reduced to mindless, catatonic puppets. And the Jinchuriki, Fū, was not their prisoner. She was a guest. A student. Her fearful words echoed in his memory: "I can't stop hearing it. The screaming."
For days. They had been kept alive and made to scream for days.
"Retsu," Black Zetsu rasped, the name feeling like a curse on his tongue. He knew the name, of course. Every major intelligence network did. Retsu Uzumaki, the legendary Kunoichi of the Waterfall. A master medic said to rival Tsunade. A Kenjutsu prodigy from a bygone era. A retired elder who had faded into myth. The files painted her as a powerful but reclusive figure, a respected antique from a past generation.
The files were a lie. A catastrophic, fatal lie.
"What do we tell Pain-sama?" White Zetsu whimpered. "That the Zombie Duo got turned into houseplants by a nice old lady? He's gonna be so mad!"
"We tell him the truth," Black Zetsu decided, his voice grim. "The mission to capture the Seven-Tails is a failure. The target is under the protection of a threat whose capabilities are completely unknown and far exceed our initial intelligence. Hidan and Kakuzu have been neutralized. Permanently."
He knew Pain would be furious. He knew this would shatter the Akatsuki's plans for the Seven-Tails. He didn't care. All that mattered was putting as much distance as possible between himself and that horrifyingly tranquil house. That woman... she wasn't just Kage-level. She was something else entirely. Something ancient and wrong.
As he prepared to merge with the earth for a final, long-range escape, a voice, soft and serene as a temple bell, echoed directly behind him.
"Leaving so soon?"
Zetsu froze. Every cell in his being screamed. He hadn't sensed her. No sound, no chakra flare, no disturbance in the air. One moment they were alone, and the next, she was simply... there.
He and his other half turned slowly, a creak of protest from their plant-like bodies.
Retsu Unohana stood a few feet away, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her simple kimono, a pleasant, gentle smile on her face. She looked like any other kind old woman one might meet on a country road.
But her eyes... her eyes held the cold, deep darkness of an abyss. And her smile never, ever reached them.
"H-How did you find us?!" White Zetsu stammered, all pretense of cheerfulness gone.
"You are a part of the earth, are you not?" Unohana replied, her voice a calm, musical melody. "And the earth is a part of my garden." She tilted her head, her smile widening slightly. "A good gardener always knows when a weed has taken root."
Black Zetsu's mind raced, searching for an escape route, a weakness, any possible avenue of survival. There were none. He was a being of stealth and subterfuge. In a direct confrontation with a monster of this caliber, he would be annihilated in an instant.
"What do you want?" he rasped.
"Want?" Unohana's smile was a picture of serene innocence. "Why, nothing at all. I simply came to deliver a message."
She took a slow, deliberate step forward. "You may return to your leader. You may tell him that the Seven-Tails is under my protection. You may tell him what has become of the two... unruly guests I am currently entertaining in my home."
Her gaze swept over them, and for a moment, the pleasant mask dropped, revealing the ancient, bloodthirsty soul of the First Kenpachi lurking just beneath the surface. Her spiritual pressure, a force Zetsu had only felt a fraction of from a distance, now washed over them, heavy and suffocating, promising a death beyond comprehension.
"And you will tell him this," she said, her voice dropping to a silken, deadly whisper. "This world is not the Soul Society. We are not bound by the laws of the Gotei 13 here. There is only us... and you."
Her pleasant smile returned in an instant.
"The next time any of you disturb the peace of my home," she finished cheerfully, "I will not be so hospitable."
Without another word, she turned and began to walk away, her form fading back into the mists of the forest. She hadn't drawn a weapon. She hadn't used a jutsu. She had simply delivered a death sentence and trusted them to be smart enough to heed it.
Zetsu remained frozen for a long, silent minute after she was gone, the phantom weight of her presence still crushing him.
"She... she let us go," White Zetsu whispered in disbelief.
"No," Black Zetsu corrected, his voice trembling with a dawning, horrifying realization. "She didn't let us go."
He looked down. A single, impossibly thin cut, no wider than a hair, had appeared on his white half's shoulder, leaking a slow, black sap. Neither of them had seen her move. Neither of them had felt the blade.
"She gave us a warning."
Tbc