Black Zetsu had learned something from his first visit.
He stood in the gate queue without complaint, without misdirection, without any attempt to slip through the village's perimeter in a way that would cause Biwa Juzo to materialize behind him with a large sword and a disappointed expression. He waited. He submitted to the checkpoint. The guard on duty looked at him for a moment longer than usual — his appearance prompted this, reliably — and then recognized him as someone flagged by the administration and waved him through without ceremony.
He had been assigned a category. That was its own kind of status.
Shiraki Yuri now named Yui met him at the courtyard entrance, said "this way" with the economy of someone who had decided long ago that guests did not require extensive orientation, and led him into the rain. She stopped at the courtyard's edge, said "he's here" in Black Zetsu's general direction, and turned and walked back inside.
Black Zetsu stood in the courtyard in the rain and looked at the space in front of him.
There was a tree in the courtyard. There were, in fact, several trees — but one of them was sitting cross-legged, and was the approximate size and shape of a person, and had an aura that Black Zetsu's senses registered as unmistakably Finn.
He stood there for a fairly long time.
The tree did not acknowledge him. The rain fell on the tree in the way rain falls on trees — routinely, without drama. Black Zetsu ran through his options. Going inside to look for Finn seemed like the most logical next step, except that he was now reasonably certain that Finn was the tree. He stood in this uncertainty for another minute or two before deciding that uncertainty was worse than being wrong, and took a step toward the building's door.
"You've been standing there thinking for quite a while," Finn's voice said. "How are you planning to approach this conversation? A greeting, at minimum, would be appropriate."
Black Zetsu turned toward the voice.
The tree had spoken.
"The—" Black Zetsu started, and stopped, and looked more carefully. The Wood Release aura was unmistakable now that he was searching for it rather than processing an ambiguous visual. He recognized it — White Zetsu had it, Obito had it, he was not unfamiliar with the signature. He had simply not processed the possibility that Finn might be sitting in a courtyard while in an advanced state of Wood Release transformation, blending into the surrounding vegetation to a degree that had genuinely fooled him for several minutes.
"A tree spirit is speaking," Black Zetsu said, before he could fully stop himself.
Finn's expression, visible now that Black Zetsu was looking at the right part of the tree, went several degrees darker.
Black Zetsu caught himself. He pulled his surprise back behind a controlled surface and said, with the tone of someone who has decided that the only way through an embarrassing moment is to treat it as intentional: "My apologies. I didn't anticipate this mode of practice. Your attunement to the natural world is... clearly beyond the level I was prepared to assess. I meant no disrespect."
Finn said nothing. He appeared to be silently enduring something.
Black Zetsu took this as permission to continue.
"I came to discuss a potential collaboration," he said, settling his composure. "Nothing to do with the Rinnegan — that matter can develop at whatever pace you're comfortable with. This is something different."
"What kind of collaboration?" Finn said.
His tone was considerably more relaxed than it had been on the previous visit. Black Zetsu noticed this and attributed it to a generally positive mood, the origin of which he did not try to identify. Positive mood was good. Positive mood was the condition under which proposals landed better.
As they spoke, Black Zetsu also noticed that Finn's Wood Release — whatever state it had been in when he arrived — was visibly retreating. The branches on his forearms were shortening, the visible bark drawing back toward skin, the leaves folding inward and disappearing. Whatever had produced the current state of things was resolving itself in real time.
Black Zetsu chose not to comment on this, correctly assessing that the subject had already been the source of at least one uncomfortable moment and was better left alone.
"We have intelligence about Konoha," Black Zetsu said. "The Nine-Tails Jinchūriki — Uzumaki Kushina, wife of the Fourth Hokage — is approximately eight months from giving birth. As I'm sure you're aware, the moment of childbirth creates a specific vulnerability in the seal between the Jinchūriki and the tailed beast. It's the narrowest viable window for extraction that we're likely to see for some time." He paused. "Konoha is the strongest hidden village, and Kushina is protected by some of the most capable shinobi alive. But during labor, her capacity to resist is essentially zero. We believe this is the moment to act."
He laid it out clearly — the Fourth Hokage, the Third Hokage, the surrounding strength that would make any normal approach impossible — and made the ask explicit: Yorozuya participation to ensure the operation succeeded.
Finn laughed.
It was a full, open sound, the kind that carries genuine amusement. One of his arms, as he laughed, finished its retraction — the last visible wood drawing back to reveal normal skin, the arm restored to its usual appearance. He looked at it for a moment with visible satisfaction, then looked back at Black Zetsu.
"I see," he said.
Black Zetsu steadied himself. The laugh had been hard to read — positive, clearly, but in which direction? He pressed on. "We're prepared to offer our highest rate for a commission of this kind. If you could personally—"
Finn raised his hand. "I'm not interested in your employment terms."
Black Zetsu absorbed this. The momentum of the pitch stalled.
"Not interested," he repeated.
"Not interested," Finn confirmed. Then: "However. I do have plans of my own in Konoha around that time. Something I need to retrieve. So I'll be in the area regardless."
Black Zetsu waited.
"I won't touch the Nine-Tails operation," Finn said. "That's yours. But once you've extracted it and you're moving — if things get complicated, if you need the noise level in Konoha turned up significantly to facilitate your evacuation — I can provide that. Create some confusion. Give your exit more room."
Black Zetsu looked at him.
This was better than what he had come here expecting to get. He had come expecting to have to negotiate hard for any level of participation. What he was being offered was not the full commission model, but it was something more operationally useful: a named, capable entity who would independently create chaos in Konoha at exactly the moment the Nine-Tails extraction was happening, not because they were hired to do it but because they were already going to be there for their own reasons. No obligation on Finn's side to ensure the extraction succeeded. No liability if Obito's operation failed. Just presence, and a willingness to make noise.
Perfect cover, Black Zetsu thought.
"You're very generous," he said.
"I'm practical," Finn said. "It costs me nothing to be present and disruptive when I'm already going to be present."
"Then—" Black Zetsu paused, recalibrated, and decided that the best thing he could do was be equally practical. "We would still like to make a contribution to the Yorozuya as an expression of sincerity. For the relationship, not for specific services rendered. I hope you won't refuse."
Finn looked at him for a moment with an expression that contained, underneath its neutrality, the quiet amusement of someone being handed money by a person who does not know exactly why they are handing it over.
"I won't refuse," Finn said.
Black Zetsu allowed himself, privately, to feel something close to satisfaction.
The meeting had not gone the way he planned. The commission had not landed. But the outcome was arguably better — a genuine operational alignment, established on terms that Finn had chosen rather than accepted under pressure, which meant the commitment had more weight than a negotiated one would have carried. And the contribution would go toward building the kind of ongoing relationship that made future asks easier.
The Nine-Tailed Fox operation was in eight months. Obito was confident he could handle the extraction alone. Black Zetsu had spent those eight months running the numbers over and over, and had come to the same conclusion each time: Obito's analysis of his own capability was correct. What it didn't account for was Obito's tendency, at critical moments, to let the operation's logical objectives get overwritten by whatever he was feeling at the time.
But that was a problem Black Zetsu would deal with when he got there.
For now, he had what he came for.
"Thank you, Lord Finn," he said.
Finn looked out at the courtyard rain.
"Thank me after it works," he said.
Black Zetsu, who had no way of knowing that his thanks would eventually be spent crying alone in a cave, nodded once and left through the rain.
Finn sat in the courtyard and looked at his restored arm — both arms now, smooth and normal, no trace of wood remaining — and thought about Konoha, and Obito, and the Scroll of Seals, and how useful it was when people's plans happened to align with yours without them understanding that they did.
The rain continued.