Hiruzen Sarutobi continued collecting corpses throughout the shinobi world, and with White Zetsu's help, their efficiency increased dramatically.
But the price of that increase was that the Allied Shinobi Forces began to take notice.
Obito, however, kept his word—he summoned a massive number of White Zetsu to take the blame, successfully diverting the Alliance's attention.
"Collecting the bodies of kekkei genkai users?"
In Kirigakure, sitting once again at the long-unoccupied Mizukage's desk, Yuki Yoru looked in surprise at the intelligence from the front lines.
Yuki Kiri, who had been handling battle reports on Yoru's behalf, nodded:
"At first, Orochimaru's Third Division, while handling the corpses, found that there was a certain degree of scarcity of the bodies of the people who had died on both sides."
"At first, no one paid attention—after all, in a war of this scale, it's normal for many bodies to be destroyed beyond recovery. But soon Orochimaru discovered a blind spot: among all the missing bodies, over eighty percent belonged to kekkei genkai users."
"And later, they found a large number of White Zetsu secretly transporting and processing those corpses."
Orochimaru…
The corner of Yoru's mouth twitched. So it wasn't some miraculous keen observation—most likely that guy was just bored at the frontlines and decided to dig back into his old hobby of research.
Still, it was interesting. From the intel Yoru had, the corpses shouldn't have much value to Obito.
Impure World Reincarnation?
That jutsu was nothing but paper to Shinigami and Quincy who wield spiritual power. Obito couldn't possibly be unaware of that.
Yoru was curious, but didn't dwell on it. Having already secured massive leverage, he no longer cared much about Obito's schemes.
"No need to worry too much—just keep control of the bigger picture."
"Mm." Yuki Kiri nodded slightly, then after a moment's hesitation, looked at Yoru with concern:
"And your plan—how is it going?"
The disturbance on Shadow Island had been enormous. Nearly the entire island had been destroyed, and the oppressive pressure it released had even spread as far as Kirigakure, leaving countless Quincy in turmoil.
Even though the Allied Forces clearly held the advantage in the ongoing war, the sudden disaster at Shadow Island—regarded as the "Fourth Sacred Ground"—made many Quincy deeply uneasy.
"Don't worry. Everything is under control."
Yoru set aside the intelligence scroll and smiled confidently:
"I've already obtained the most valuable bargaining chip. Once I swallow it, my path forward will have no more obstacles."
Hearing his confident reassurance, Kiri let out a quiet sigh of relief, and her usually cold face softened with a smile:
"I believe in you."
"Believe in what? The moment I'm gone, you sneak around doing this kind of stuff, huh!"
Along with a boisterous greeting, Mei Terumī pushed open the office door and walked in with the graceful Tagitsuhime behind her.
Yoru ignored Mei's nonsense, his eyes shifting to Tagitsuhime behind her.
As one of the three shrine maidens who served the White Snake Sage, Tagitsuhime almost never left Ryūchidō. Even earlier, when they helped Yoru spread the word of spiritual power and recruit disciples like those at Shadow Island, the three shrine maidens had still remained inside Ryūchidō.
Yet today, Tagitsuhime had come to him on her own initiative.
"What has happened?"
"Lord of Souls." Tagitsuhime took a deep breath, her beautiful face heavy with worry:
"The White Snake Sage has gone missing!"
"What?!"
…
The barrier opened, and space flowed. A world that was a little dilapidated but heavily guarded appeared before their eyes.
A dense amount of combat puppets filled every corner of the space. Obito, who was using Kamui, passed through them as if he was in an uninhabited place and arrived at the depths of the entire city.
In front of a lake filled with countless floating emerald-green sphere of light—the spacetime barrier that could let one leap from the shinobi world straight to the moon!
"What a suffocating defense. If we were to attack head-on, it would probably be quite troublesome." White Zetsu clicked his tongue and looked at the back with some fear. The number and strength of those puppet soldiers were extremely exaggerated. If it weren't for Obito's Kamui, a fierce battle would definitely be waiting for them.
"The Ōtsutsuki on the moon are indeed powerful… but the state of this city reveals something about them too."
Obito Uchiha leaped into the lake. He felt the special chakra in the lake. While gently touching the charming glowing chakra spheres that pulled at some kind of emotion in his heart, he said:
"A city like this, even if it's dilapidated, should have someone guarding it. After all, a passage leading to the moon is hidden within it."
"But in such a crucial place, apart from those puppet soldiers guarding it so tightly, there isn't a single living being. Is it arrogance—thinking people from the earth below could never find something this hidden? Or is it that their numbers have decrease so much they simply can't spare anyone to station here?"
"Obviously the latter. After all, it wasn't long ago that Yuki Yoru struck them down once already." White Zetsu eagerly answered Obito's question—but then he paused, puzzled.
"So… the descendants of Ōtsutsuki Hamura on the moon… don't have many left? But that doesn't make sense. They've always lived up there, overlooking the shinobi world. Without enemies or survival pressures, how could their numbers have decrease?
"Any shinobi clan, given a thousand years, should've become a massive force by now—no matter how foolish they were. Look at the Sarutobi clan! Just under Hiruzen's twenty or thirty years in power, they managed to grow into Konoha's largest clan by population!"
"That is indeed an interesting question," Obito said calmly. "Once we're on the moon, perhaps we can uncover the truth."
A strange light enveloped Obito's body. After using the power of Kamui to absorb Zetsu, Obito's figure suddenly disappeared from the spot under this light.
When he opened his eyes again—an utterly barren world spread before him!
Space twisted. Both Black and White Zetsu were looking around curiously at everything.
In the world of Naruto, there were also many novels and stories. The descriptions and guesses about the moon also had many descriptions and guesses, such as various attics, palaces, and gods from the heavens and other random things.
But he never expected that the actual situation on the moon would be so desolate.
Obito's gaze swept over the desolate ground of the moon and suddenly stopped.
Black and White Zetsu also curiously followed his gaze, and the expressions on their faces also froze.
"I didn't expect the world we live in to look like this..."
Looking at the beautiful blue planet, White Zetsu was a little excited. This was the first time he had seen the full picture of the world he lived in.
Obito's gaze was also extremely solemn. Even his eyes had turned into Rinnegan, looking back at the blue planet below.
"It looks beautiful, but its core has long been rotten to the root."
He muttered in a low voice, as if he was evaluating his own world, and also as if he was making a certain resolution: "And I will personally create this beautiful world again and completely cleanse it!"
After watching for a moment, Obito proactively turned around: "Let's go. Let's do the main thing first."
White Zetsu reluctantly pulled his gaze back, while the silent Black Zetsu also withdrew his eyes from the pitch-black, boundless starry sky and quietly followed in Obito's steps.
His mother, whom he had been thinking about saving, came from this vast and boundless sky, and the thing he was most worried about was also hidden within it.
Yes, the thing he was most worried about.
In Black Zetsu's heart, things like Yuki Yoru, Obito Uchiha, the situation of the shinobi world, and his plan being disrupted were actually not important.
He was special, the child of the supreme Rabbit Goddess, with endless life. Even if everything was destroyed, even if all failed, he would not die. He could wait.
A hundred years. A thousand years.
Until Yuki Yoru's "Souls Empire" collapsed. Until his schemes once again covered the entire shinobi world. Until the nine tailed beasts reappeared and he captured them one by one.
He was not afraid at all. He could wait.
However, the guys contained in this deep starry sky, his mother's kin, were the ones that Black Zetsu was truly afraid of, worried about, and scared of.
He was afraid that before his plan could be implemented, and before his mother could be saved, those guys would find this place and descend upon it...
That was what Black Zetsu was truly afraid of, and it was the reason why he had to bite the bullet and continue to guide Obito forward in the current situation, which was almost a complete collapse.
He could wait, but he couldn't wait any longer.
"There are three people in the southeast direction," Obito's voice cut through Black Zetsu's tangled thoughts.
"No… to be precise, they're puppets. Looks like something serious really did happen on the moon, if the descendants of Ōtsutsuki Hamura have fallen to this degree."
"To knowingly face invaders, and still send out such powerless puppets… I'm even starting to wonder if my trip to the moon this time is correct or not."
With a casual Shinra Tensei, Obito crushed the incoming puppets. As though sensing his disdain, no further puppets appeared.
Without any obstacles, Obito easily passed through the lake of the boundary of heaven and earth left by Ōtsutsuki Hamura. He crossed the ruins of the city, which was almost the same as the ground city, and arrived at the moon palace where the last descendants of the Ōtsutsuki clan lived.
"I can feel the chakra of a living person."
White Zetsu spoke in a low voice. He could feel the chakra in the palace in front of him, but what shocked him was that although there was the chakra of a living person here... there was only one.
In other words, in this huge palace, and even on this entire moon, there was only one person left!
"They live in a secluded place on the moon, with no conflicts of interest, extreme safety, and a detached life, but after thousands of years of development, this huge clan is left with only one person..."
Obito Uchiha looked at the majestic stone door that was slowly opening. His tone was strange. He didn't know if he was mocking or curious.
But when he clearly saw the figure with his eyes closed that appeared behind the stone door, the expression on his pure white mask paused slightly.
Was this the sole descendant of Ōtsutsuki Hamura... a little too young?
"I know why you've come, descendant of Hagoromo."
A slightly immature voice was uttered from the mouth of the young boy. The Hamura descendant named Toneri Ōtsutsuki used his closed eyes to look at the direction where Obito and Black Zetsu were: "I can team up with you to fight the Lord of Souls together."
"I think I understand something. You have a grudge with Yuki Yoru, right? That Ōtsutsuki of the moon who went to the ground and was killed by Yuki Yoru back then should have been the last of your Ōtsutsuki clansmen, right? Was he your blood relative?"
"That was my father."
Toneri didn't conceal anything. His calm tone carried none of the emotions one would expect from someone his age.
"A father's death—your vengeance?"
"No. Compared to the entire world, such a grudge is insignificant. Just as the conviction you now hold in your heart, we who dwell on the moon also have our own obsession."
Toneri shook his head. While he had grieved for his father's death, what truly drove him to cooperate with Uchiha Obito was the ancestral decree of the moon's Ōtsutsuki clan:
When the shinobi world falls beyond saving, deliver upon it a catastrophic blow—so that it may be cleansed, destroyed, and reborn anew.
That was their very purpose for existing—the divine mandate that the moon's Ōtsutsuki had upheld for generations.
"So we are people with the same goal." Obito clearly understood Toneri Ōtsutsuki's meaning, but he did not treat Toneri Ōtsutsuki in front of him the same way he treated Hiruzen Sarutobi, even though the other party was proactively showing his willingness to cooperate.
"But cooperating with such a naive and weak person like you, or me directly taking the resources and power you have to help you complete your obsession, which one do you think is easier?"
In an instant, Obito Uchiha had already rushed in front of Toneri Ōtsutsuki.
But just as Obito's attack was about to land on Toneri Ōtsutsuki's body, the young boy who had his eyes closed suddenly opened his eyes, revealing a pair of starry eyes that were as brilliant as diamonds!
An emerald green chakra flame instantly wrapped around his body. The vast chakra was highly condensed and became as solidified as a Susanoo. With the young boy's slender hand, it turned into a green fist shadow that ferociously flew toward Obito's white mask.
"What?!"
"Divine Void Strike!"
The sudden burst made Obito frown. He subconsciously used the Almighty Push to counter it, but after the two forces were in a stalemate for a moment, the repulsive force barrier that he had released was actually shattered.
The green chakra fist shadow directly landed on Obito's pure white mask, smashing it into pieces and revealing the ugly face underneath...