Betty Zoldyck's gaze shifted; her body drifted as she snuggled into his arms, one hand resting on his chest as she asked softly, "What did you notice this time?"
"Do you feel Roy is progressing too fast and worry that he'll be bitten back by 'Nature'... or is it....."
Maha slipped an arm around Betty's waist and slowly shook his head. "He is the sun—he's inherently part of 'Nature'. How could he possibly suffer backlash from it?"
"Then what are you worried about?"
Maha didn't answer. That withered hand of his slid up along Betty's spine. His gaze grew distant, and after a moment he said in a deep voice, "I'm worried he'll lose himself."
The old man narrowed his eyes, recalling the people he'd just seen in the Mind Space—Orochimaru, Senju Hashirama, Senju Tobirama and the others. In a low murmur he said, "'Dreams' are unfathomable. You and I cannot dream in his stead... You saw it too today: in that child's dream even resurrection is possible. Whoever he encounters in the future in his dreams, whatever he experiences, even... mortal danger—all of that, he must face alone. I mean, if...."
Maha's words paused; then he said gravely, "If he experiences life and death within a dream, and that reflects back onto the real world, it may cause him completely irreversible impact and damage."
Betty Zoldyck shuddered in fright, suddenly straightening her back. She locked her gaze on Maha. "You're saying someone intends to make a move against Roy in his dreams!"
"It's only speculation...."
"Speculation? Back then with Jager, you said it was speculation too. And the result?"
Betty flung off Maha's withered, placating hand and began pacing worriedly around the room.....
As she walked, her hands twisted together, and she muttered anxiously, "Conjuration types are especially prone to losing themselves between 'illusory' and 'real'. Back then Jager was trapped by someone using 'Game' in reverse against him. If Roy were to....."
"Maha," Betty suddenly halted in her tracks. "This won't do. You have to think of something!"
The rocking chair creaked—"squeak~"—back and forth.....
The old man slumped there with narrowed eyes, silent for a long while,
then sighed helplessly. "There is no way,"
"It can only depend on him. After all, it's his own dream,"
"And we," Maha's cloudy old eyes opened and closed as he looked out the window at the blazing sun, baking the ground and steaming up waves of summer heat. He said slowly, "can only pray that no one targets him. That's all we can do...."
When his words fell, the dim little room sank into a long silence.....
.......
"Mom~"
In the world of the Hokage, in a hidden forest bordering Konoha,
a blurry, pitch-black shadow, clinging to the shadow of a great tree, jolted awake... With a sudden turn it sat up. Beads of cold sweat seeped from its ink-black forehead.....
Another nightmare. Who knows which number nightmare this is that Zetsu has had over the millennia since Kaguya Ōtsutsuki was sealed...
Every time, in the dream, he sees his mother weeping blood, those pale eyes glaring as she questions him: just how much longer does she have to wait,
and every time Zetsu is so terrified he can barely breathe, almost crushed by the weight of it.
"Zetsu, are you going to betray me like your two elder brothers?"
His mother's words were still vivid before his eyes. At the mention of his two brothers, Zetsu, through the thick night, borrowed the moonlight and, hunched in the tree's shadow, gazed at the bright moon. That was the prison where his mother was sealed, and also the place guarded by his good second brother, Ōtsutsuki Hamura.
Now a thousand years have passed; his big brother is dead, and his second brother, one would think, has long since perished as well... Half of Zetsu's body sank into the tree's shadow; the other half faced the starry sky. He slowly shook his head and said, "Of course it's not like that, Mother. Please believe me—I've been working hard all along and have never slacked. Soon... I'll let you out."
His body followed, sinking into the ground like a mayfly, slowly descending underground. Using the Mayfly Technique, he traveled freely through the earth, quickly arriving in a mysterious subterranean space—an underground fortress excavated deep below ground back when The Uchiha Clan was preparing for war.
Sadly, that particular generation of Uchiha back then all died; one by one they were swept into the dust-bin of history.....
The ones left now, these younger Uchiha—such as Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Hachida, and even the oldest of The Uchiha Clan elders, Uchiha Shana—would never imagine that right on Konoha's outskirts, at the edge of the sensory barrier, there lay hidden such an underground fortress, and that a certain person—who by all rights should already be dead—was still clinging to life there......
"You're here....."
At the top of the fortress, Zetsu slowly poked his head out,
and the instant he surfaced, a faint, hoarse, and feeble voice reached him... like a candle set in a cold wind, ready to be snuffed out by the slightest draft... so eerie it made the back of one's neck crawl and one's scalp prickle.....
Zetsu had long since grown used to that voice.
He pulled himself completely out of the earth, then flipped over and slowly descended. What came into view was a desiccated body, riddled with tubes that connected into a gigantic Golem,
which was slowly injecting chakra.
A fleeting hint of mockery flickered deep within Zetsu's eyes. He reached into his robes, took out several scrolls, unfurled them, and held them one by one before the "mummy" for inspection.
"As per your instructions, among the younger generation of The Uchiha Clan, there are currently three individuals who can be designated as primary observation targets."
Zetsu's hoarse, shadowy voice spread slowly as the scrolls opened, revealing several portraits. "They are Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Shisui, and the one I mentioned to you last time... Uchiha Jin!"
At the mention of "Uchiha Jin", the "mummy's" ear twitched, and he struggled to open his eyes. Eerily, one of them was gone entirely, leaving only a dark, empty socket that made one's blood run cold.......
He said weakly, "Bring it closer."
Zetsu obeyed, opening the scroll and stepping forward. On the scroll labeled "Uchiha Jin" was the portrait of a handsome young face—three parts resembling Fugaku, seven parts Mikoto—staring at him calmly....
The "mummy" froze for a moment. Through that tender face, he seemed vaguely to see his own younger brother—the one who died at the hands of Senju Tobirama, the one who gave his eyes to him before his death, the one who, even as he was about to die, still admonished him not to forget to protect the Uchiha.....
The "mummy" hunched, his voice like grinding stone as he rasped, "Izuna....."
He stared in a daze for a long... long time......
A moment later, perhaps because his Emotions had been stirred, or perhaps because he hadn't spoken for too long, the "mummy" began coughing violently. Only after quite a while did he manage to catch his breath. With the Golem behind him increasing its chakra output to stabilize his body, he looked up at Zetsu again and asked, "Does he have a younger brother?"
"He does." Zetsu recalled a scene he had once secretly glimpsed. Narrowing his eyes, he said, "His younger brother is named Uchiha Itachi, the current clan head of The Uchiha Clan and Uchiha Fugaku's younger son."
"Itachi..." The "mummy" mouthed the name, then gave a weak, rasping chuckle....
"It's good that he has a younger brother,"
"It's good that he has a younger brother... Then it'll be him. Proceed according to the original plan...."
"I want to watch him fall into the Avici Hell,"
"to awaken—through the death of his kin——"
"the Mangekyō!"
Zetsu opened the scroll belonging to Obito, glanced at Madara, and said, "You're not choosing him? He looks like an idiot—perfect for manipulation....."
Madara shot him a sideways look, brooking no argument. "Remember, you are merely a fragment of my Will. You only need to... obey!"
Zetsu bent at the waist in a bow. "Yes, Lord Madara."
Immediately afterward, a trace of ridicule flashed again through his lowered gaze. Then he... sank into the earth and vanished......
Within the gloomy underground fortress, in an instant only the "mummy" and the mute Golem remained, savoring the solitude....
Once Zetsu's shadow had completely disappeared from his sight,
the "mummy" gazed across layers upon layers of rock in the distant direction of Konoha......
Today's Konoha was as it always had been—peaceful and tranquil, seemingly untouched by the Third Great War, to a degree of calm that was almost excessive... except for,
the Fugaku residence, whose doors were being hammered on with Great Strength by a certain someone!
"Dong dong dong....."
"Dong dong dong....."
Within The Uchiha Clan compound, at the small residence belonging to Uchiha Fugaku, two rare "uninvited guests" had arrived!
Hearing the knocking, Uchiha Fugaku—just off the night shift—was sitting at the dining table in the living room, drinking tea while waiting for Mikoto to finish making breakfast so he could eat and then sleep. His brows knit as he rose, walked to the entryway, and pulled open the door. He froze for a few seconds, then said:
"Lady Tsunade....."