In a world where normal death was considered a luxury, especially among shinobi, most didn't even bother imagining it.
To die quietly, without blood or witnesses, was mundane.
If one had to fall, it should be in a blaze, etched into mission reports and whispered in academy halls.
Akira Uchiha wanted none of that.
He didn't want glory.
He didn't want a heroic end.
He wanted to survive.
Just one year.
Avoid death flags, come back alive, and then reassess everything.
That had been the plan.
But plans had a habit of collapsing the moment Nawaki Senju got involved.
Despite repeated warnings, despite Akira's Sharingan flaring like a siren, Nawaki charged ahead in his usual reckless fashion and triggered the trap.
An explosive one.
Akira didn't think.
Didn't calculate.
Didn't hesitate.
His body moved on its own.
Substitution.
Impossible, really. The timing was wrong. The chakra cost obscene. His nervous system screamed that it shouldn't work.
It did.
And in doing so, Akira bid farewell to his life.
Or so he thought.
Darkness.
Then… sensation.
He didn't know how long it had been. Hours, maybe days. Time felt thick, viscous, like it refused to flow. He lay on something soft but unfamiliar. A bed, perhaps.
He couldn't move.
Not his legs.
Not his torso.
Barely his neck.
His face was wrapped in bandages. His hands too. The weight of them pressed reality into him with cruel clarity. His lower body felt distant, numb in a way that suggested something far worse than paralysis.
Gone.
The silence pressed in. Darkness and loneliness conspired, forcing his mind to wander where he didn't want it to go.
How the hell am I alive?
The thought repeated, louder each time.
Could it be…?
The sound of a door opening cut through his spiral.
Footsteps. Light. And then a voice, oddly cheerful for a place that smelled faintly of antiseptic and secrets.
"Heyyy!!! You're awake!!!! Great!!! You were asleep for days!"
Akira turned his eyes toward the sound with immense effort. Each movement felt like dragging his consciousness through wet sand.
"Th… thank you," he croaked, throat dry, voice barely holding together.
"It seems my life was saved by you. I… wasn't expecting to be alive."
A short laugh.
"Oh, thank Black Zetsu," the man said casually. "He was the one who brought you in. You were already one foot in the grave when he dragged you here."
Akira didn't reply.
He exhaled slowly, a sound closer to resignation than relief.
Black Zetsu… huh.
Wonderful....
He didn't know whether to be grateful that he had survived…
Or gutted that he had survived this way.
Falling into the hands of the world's most devoted son was not a fate he would have chosen.
_____________
Hours, maybe days earlier
Somewhere in the Land of Rivers
"That's the last of them," Orochimaru said calmly, wiping blood from his sleeve.
"Now we're clear to destroy the supply depot. With that, our mission should be complete."
"Well done, Akira-kun. Nawaki-kun. And you too, Nono."
Akira frowned.
"Sensei, destroying it feels wasteful. Why not raid it instead?"
Orochimaru's golden eyes flickered with interest.
"Hm. Do as you wish."
The words had barely left his mouth when Nawaki was already moving.
"Nawaki-kun is always energetic," Orochimaru chuckled softly.
Akira's chest tightened.
Alarm bells screamed inside his skull.
"Wait...Nawaki! There could be traps!"
Too late.
Akira followed, Sharingan blazing, vision slowing the world just enough for him to see fate reach out its hand.
A seal.
A trigger.
A fraction of a second.
His body moved before his mind could object.
BOOM.
Pain.
Then darkness.
—————
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe an underground bunker.
Maybe something far worse, disguised as shelter.
Lying there, wrapped in bandages and silence, Akira Uchiha replayed the sequence again and again, each memory sharpening into a blade.
How stupid he had been.
Greed. It was always greed. Mankind's oldest saboteur.
He should have let Orochimaru destroy the supply depot.
If that had happened, Nawaki's reckless bone wouldn't have twitched.
If Nawaki hadn't rushed ahead, Akira wouldn't have chased him.
If Akira hadn't chased him, his so-called good Samaritan instincts wouldn't have flared.
And if those instincts hadn't triggered…
He wouldn't be here.
He wouldn't have substituted.
He would have survived...
And he certainly wouldn't have ended up in the clutches of Black Zetsu.
Akira Uchiha.
Corvus Lestrange.
Different names, different worlds, same curse.
No matter how meticulously he planned, no matter how clean the trajectory seemed, fate always waited for the precise moment of confidence to strike sideways. A curveball, sharp and unannounced, aimed straight at the ribs.
This time, fate hadn't just nudged him.
It had rebuilt him.
A new and improved prototype.
An Obito Uchiha, refined.
If such a thing was even possible.
The thought settled uneasily.
Would Madara stage a similar play for him?
A slow seduction wrapped in ideology and despair?
And Nawaki…
Would Nono be ordered to kill him?
Or would Danzō take matters into his own hands, as he always did?
The more Akira traced the past, the clearer the patterns became. He had been too late. Too late to stop Nono's induction into Root. That plan had been dead on arrival.
By the time she joined their team, she had already belonged to someone else.
An agent.
A blade or a spy hidden in plain sight.
And Orochimaru… he must have known. Of course he had. Orochimaru always knew. He simply chose when knowledge was worth acting upon.
The ripples of his supposed death spiraled outward.
How would Nawaki react? Guilt? Rage? Recklessness amplified?
How would Orochimaru respond? Curiosity sharpened by loss?
And his mother…
At least she had a husband now.
At least she wouldn't be alone.
That thought hurt more than it should have.
But the most pressing question loomed larger than all others.
How should he respond when the sales pitch began? What was it called Infinite Tskochumi, or Tsukonumi ..
Black Zetsu.
Madara Uchiha
Promises of purpose. Of truth. Of reshaping a broken world. But, basically a resurrection or unsealing ritual..
Akira knew the script. He should have prepared for this eventuality.
Should have.
Still… better late than never.
His body was broken.
Bedridden.
Pinned in place like a piece waiting to be moved.
But his mind was intact.
And time, for once, was abundant.
Plenty of time to plan.
Thankfully.
————
Meanwhile, in another room of the bunker
Madara Uchiha lay upon the stone platform like a relic that refused to crumble.
Old.
Worn.
Yet unbroken.
Thick, pale tubes formed from hardened tree roots pierced his back and limbs, feeding him chakra stolen from time itself. They ran behind him, sinking deep into the massive husk of a golem-like statue. Its nine eyes were shut, dormant...
Standing before him was Black Zetsu.
His will.
Or so Madara believed.
"So," Madara said at last, his voice low but firm, carrying weight no age could erode. One of his eyes snapped open, the Sharingan within it gleaming faintly.
"The boy is awake."
"Yes," Black Zetsu replied. "He was unconscious for nearly a month. Even I thought it might be too late."
Madara's lips curved, just barely.
"Good. Very good."
Things had unfolded close enough to the path he had carved decades ago. Not perfectly, perhaps, but fate rarely offered obedience. It preferred improvisation.
"How is his mental condition?" Madara asked.
"He has been silent since waking, Madara-sama. He speaks only when required."
A pause.
"Possibly shock."
Madara exhaled slowly.
"Hmph. He was blown apart by the explosion. Reduced to fragments."
His gaze drifted briefly toward the statue behind him.
"Zetsu had to collect his body piece by piece. If not for his… particular nature, the boy would not be alive."
"Yes, Madara-sama," Black Zetsu replied evenly.
Then, hesitantly, "If I may ask… will he truly follow the plan? He is intelligent. Unusually so. What if he resists? What if he acts outside our expectations?"
Madara let out a low, amused huff.
"Even if he does," he said calmly, "he will have no choice but to walk the path we have laid."
His eye flicked back to Black Zetsu.
"You placed the seals, didn't you? The curse marks on his heart… his brain… his spine?"
"Yes," Black Zetsu answered without delay.
"Every contingency accounted for."
"Then there is nothing to worry about," Madara said.
Silence settled like dust.
"Focus on his recovery. When his body is ready…"
A faint smile ghosted across Madara's face.
"…it will be our turn to act."
"Yes, Madara-sama."
Black Zetsu dissolved into the shadows, melting seamlessly into the darkness that clung to the cavern walls.
Left alone, Madara Uchiha closed his eyes.
Arguably the strongest of the Uchiha.
One of the strongest shinobi to ever exist.
His breathing slowed as he entered meditation.
There had been hiccups. Variables he hadn't anticipated. But even so, the board was set, the pieces moving.
One step closer to his ambition.
One step closer to a world without war.
Eternal peace.
For all shinobi kind.
And this time…
it would not fail....
Fade. Sink. Become unobserved.
Black Zetsu slipped into the stone, his form dissolving into shadow and chakra residue so thin that even Madara's senses would find nothing to grasp.
Outwardly, obedience.
Inwardly… calculation.
Madara Uchiha, he thought, not with reverence, but with quiet appraisal.
Still convinced this path is yours.
Old. Exhausted. Brilliant in the way only monsters of history could be. Madara believed the boy was a refinement of an idea he had already shaped in his mind.
A successor.
A carrier.
A vessel for will.
How predictable, Black Zetsu mused. To think destiny bends because you push it.
Akira Uchiha had not been chosen because he was weak.
Nor because he was broken.
Those came later.
He had been chosen because he refused to disappear.
Blown apart by an explosion that should have erased him from the ledger of the living. Flesh scattered. Organs ruptured.
Chakra pathways torn like snapped threads, limbs burned to become ashes...
Most shinobi would have dispersed into nothing long before Zetsu finished gathering what remained.
Akira Uchiha had not.
His chakra clung to his body with an almost irritating persistence. Even unconscious, even fragmented, the boy's will refused to loosen its grip.
Curious, Zetsu had thought then.
This one is persistent.
That made him dangerous.
Which was why the seals had been placed with care.
Not crude bindings.
Not obvious restraints.
Heart.
Brain.
Spine.
Not chains, but contingencies. Pressure points woven into the nervous system itself. Failsafes layered upon failsafes.
Not control.
Correction and Influence.
Zetsu did not need obedience. Obedience was fragile. It broke under strain.
He needed direction.
A nudge at the precise moment. A hesitation inserted between thought and action.
Madara believed inevitability came from power and desire for change..
It doesn't, Black Zetsu reflected.
It comes from sequencing.
Akira would think. Black Zetsu had already seen the signs. The silence. The stillness. The eyes that measured instead of pleading. Even bedridden, the boy was mapping possibilities.
Good, Black Zetsu thought. Plan.
Plans made people confident.
Confidence made them careless.
Carelessness leads to mistakes..
Mistakes make it easier to manipulate.
And if Akira resisted manipulation?
If he rejected Madara's vision?
If he attempted to step outside the script entirely?
Black Zetsu did not mind.
Madara was a necessary phase.
Akira was a useful phase.
No individual ever mattered.
Only the outcome.
The return of something ancient.
His mother has been waiting for long.
A world corrected to its original shape.
Let Madara believe this is his dream, BlackZetsu thought as he sank deeper into the earth.
Dreams are tools.
And when the time came…
Tools could be discarded.
And new tools could be forged.
Black Zetsu had waited a thousand years.
Empires had risen and collapsed into dust. Names had been carved into stone and forgotten.
Generations of Indra and Asura had been born, clashed, and died, over and over again, like waves breaking endlessly against the same shore.
A tug of war stretching across centuries.
Only this time…
This time, the progress had been promising.
The impossible had finally been achieved.
The Rinnegan had been born finally...
Not by chance.
Not by destiny.
But by subtle nudges. Whispered suggestions.
Carefully timed tragedies.
Years of manipulation layered upon centuries of patience.
At last, the pieces were aligning, but Madara was too old to do the needful, hence the need for a success arose..
And now that he stood this close to reviving his mother, Black Zetsu would not allow the failure, doubt, or whims of a single boy to sabotage everything.
No matter how interesting that boy was.
As Black Zetsu made his way through the underground corridors toward Akira's room, his anticipation sharpened. This would be the first true conversation. The first test.
Long before this moment, long before the explosion, Black Zetsu had known of him.
After Mito Uzumaki's death, while watching Konoha from the shadows, Black Zetsu had noticed an anomaly among the Uchiha.
A boy who did not fit.
He was intelligent.
Unusually kind.
And he sang songs that did not belong to this world, melodies that carried emotion in ways shinobi language never could.
It had been… curious.
When White Zetsu reported his observations to Madara, the old Uchiha had grown interested. Interested enough to hijack one of the White Zetsu clones and spy personally on the boy.
The result had been immediate.
"He is the one," Madara had said.
Black Zetsu had understood why.
Akira Uchiha bore an uncanny resemblance to Izuna Uchiha in his youth. Not merely in appearance, but in presence. The same intensity behind the eyes. The same pull that made others orbit without realizing why.
Madara, for all his strength, had always been vulnerable to such echoes.
Sentimentality.
Zetsu found it almost amusing.
Regardless of what Madara claimed, he had always been the one to falter when memories whispered too loudly. The one who mistook familiarity for fate.
Akira Uchiha was not chosen because he resembled Izuna.
He was chosen because he could be used.
And if he failed to serve that purpose…
Then, like all tools before him, he would be replaced.
Black Zetsu paused before the threshold, before he could emerge in the room where Akira Uchiha laid.
It was time to speak.
To see whether this one would bend…
or whether he would need to be broken first.
————
Akira felt it before he heard anything.
The room did not change.
The lamps burned with the same steady flame.
The air remained still, obedient.
And yet something arrived.
Not a presence that announced itself, not a killing intent that clawed at instinct. This was older than that. Subtler. His chakra reacted a heartbeat too late, like a guard who recognized danger only after the blade was already past the gate.
That delay unsettled him more than any scream could have.
The shadow along the far wall deepened.
Not lengthened.
Not shifted with the light.
It thickened, as if darkness itself had remembered it was meant to occupy space.
Black Zetsu peeled himself out of it, ink deciding it no longer wished to be flat.
"Good evening, Akira Uchiha," he said lightly. "You heal faster than expected."
Akira did not answer.
Silence was not emptiness. Silence was information. He had learned that lesson young, and paid for it in blood.
Black Zetsu continued, unbothered.
"I suppose congratulations are in order. Most people don't survive being… reassembled."
A pause followed.
No panic.
No denial.
No frantic grasping for meaning.
Then Black Zetsu said, " We would meet again, once you are better, take care, Akira Uchiha".
The night did not return to normal.
It pretended to.
Akira lay still long after Zetsu vanished, eyes half-lidded, breath shallow enough to sell exhaustion.
The lamps continued their patient vigil. Somewhere beyond the walls, Konoha slept, unaware that one of its ghosts had just been stitched back into existence.
Only when the ache in his bones settled into a dull, manageable throb did he move.
Not much.
A finger flex.
A toe.
A test.
There it was.
The hesitation.
A fraction of a second between command and compliance. Small enough to miss. Large enough to kill you in a real fight.
Akira swallowed.
Siri, his ever-reliable system, had already completed an initial scan of his body. The results were… unsettling.
Nearly thirty percent of him was no longer entirely human.
Artificial matter. Foreign constructs. Stuffs layered into flesh and bone.
He was alive because of them. More than that, they had kept him alive for days without food or water, his body sustaining itself in a closed loop of forced equilibrium.
While he lay unconscious, his organs had mended on their own. Not naturally. Not entirely.
White Zetsu's contribution.
Siri confirmed it clinically. Cellular reinforcement. Regenerative scaffolding. Biological shortcuts that should not exist in any clean medical text.
The system had assisted in assimilation, smoothing the junctions between what he had been and what he now was.
It was during that process that Siri had found them.
Seals.
Not crude restraints. Not obvious commands. Subtle, deeply integrated.
Analysis would take time.
A lot of time.
Siri estimated he had been unconscious for nearly a month. Optimistically, another month would be required to fully understand what the seals were designed to do.
Optimistic.
Akira accepted the word without comfort. Optimism, when stripped of illusion, was simply discipline in disguise.
He closed his eyes and turned inward.
The seals revealed themselves more clearly now.
They were layered, not carved. Woven into his chakra network like veins grown around foreign metal. Old craftsmanship. Not Uzumaki elegance. Not Senju brute force.
Something parasitic. Intelligent.
Designed to nudge, not chain.
Which meant they depended on predictability.
Akira's lips curved almost imperceptibly.
That could be worked with.
Predictability was a habit. Habits could be unlearned.
He started small.
Thought exercises first. Dangerous thoughts, but shaped carefully.
Madara Uchiha is alive.
Nothing.
A ripple at most. No tightening. No stutter.
Black Zetsu is lying.
A flicker behind the eyes. Barely perceptible. Logged.
I will kill him.
There it was.
A sharp constriction in the chest, like invisible fingers testing his heart's willingness to continue. The spine seal whispered, not yet pulling, just… reminding.
Akira backed off immediately.
Too blunt.
So he reframed.
Black Zetsu is a variable.
No response.
Variables must be accounted for.
Still nothing.
Akira exhaled slowly.
Intent mattered more than content.
The seals did not react to hostility.
They reacted to resolution.
To certainty.
Good.
That meant doubt was armor.
Days passed.
Recovery progressed exactly as expected. Faster than humanly reasonable.
Slower than legendary.
Enough to look miraculous without inviting questions. White Zetsus or Arika, it called itself, rotated in and out.
None stayed long. None probed deeply.
That alone told him enough.
He was not meant to be healed.
He was meant to be returned.
During physical therapy, he learned his limits.
Where the spine override tugged hardest. Which angles of motion triggered resistance.
Which emotions caused micro-blackouts so brief they could be mistaken for blinking.
Anger was dangerous. Grief even more so.
Acceptance, however…
Acceptance was invisible.
So he accepted.
He would play the grateful survivor with unsettling precision.
Let the story write itself around him.
Inside, he dissected everything.
On the seventh night, Black Zetsu returned.
Not fully. Just a whisper from the wall, a dark ripple where shadows pooled unnaturally.
"You adapt quickly," Zetsu murmured. "Most struggle with… adjustment."
Akira did not look at him.
"I've always been good at surviving," he said. "You don't live long in this world otherwise."
True enough to be dangerous.
Zetsu hummed in what might have been approval.
"In time," he said, "you may be entrusted with more."
There it was again.
Entrusted.
A leash disguised as promotion.
Akira finally turned his head, meeting the darkness where Zetsu's face would form.
"And if I disappoint you?"
Zetsu's voice softened.
"Then we will correct course."
A polite way of saying we will pull the strings.
Akira nodded once.
"I understand."
And he did.
Correction required detection.
Detection required patterns.
Patterns required repetition.
Which meant Black Zetsu would need him active.
Mobile.
Useful.
The thought settled comfortably.
"You should rest and be grateful," Black Zetsu added, arranging his face into something that approximated a smile. "Few are given a second chance like this."
Second chance.
Akira tasted the words.
Gratitude.
Debt.
Obligation.
The first hook. Finally Black Zetsu is going for the talk..
He kept his face neutral, his breathing shallow. Weakness was expected. So he offered it. Just not the kind that mattered.
"And why me?" he asked quietly.
Black Zetsu tilted his head.
"Because you are special," he replied. "An Uchiha who is kind yet strong. Prideful, but not foolish."
Second hook.
Akira almost laughed.
Special was the laziest lie ever told. It promised destiny while explaining nothing.
"I see," he murmured. "That's convenient."
Zetsu's eyes narrowed a fraction. Not irritation. Evaluation.
"You don't believe me."
"I didn't say that," Akira replied. "I'm just trying to understand the price."
There it was.
Not why.
Not how.
The price.
Zetsu's interest sharpened.
"There is no price," Black Zetsu said smoothly. "Only purpose. A world that no longer devours children like Nawaki Senju. A world where sacrifices like yours are unnecessary. A world where children are not sent to war while grown men manipulate events from distant towers."
Akira's chakra flinched at Nawaki's name.
He allowed it.
So Danzo had a hand in this after all, he thought.
Black Zetsu noticed the shift.
Third hook. Emotion.
"You acted to save him," Zetsu continued, voice calm, almost gentle. "That tells me everything I need to know about you. Your mission was a trap. Konoha's current powers would never allow Senju and Uchiha to rise again, or to be friends.. "
He leaned closer, shadows pressing in.
"When weak people reach the top, they break the ladders behind them. And they eliminate those who might climb after, it's a necessity for them.. An occupational hazard.. This world always needed a guiding hand."
Akira's eyes dimmed and he interrupted,
"And if I refuse to be what you want me to be?" he asked
Black Zetsu chuckled softly.
"Then nothing changes. You will still heal. Still live. But, your memory of this place would be sealed so that you can never speak about it to anyone, you must have noticed those, didn't you? You are smart enough, not to.. And you would return to where you came from, And you will watch the same tragedies repeat. Again and again. You are far too intelligent not to see that, and that time, we would not come to your rescue. "
Akira lowered his gaze.
Now, his mind whispered.
This was the moment Zetsu believed he was winning. The moment his vigilance would loosen by a fraction.
Akira turned inward.
The seals made themselves known.
Not chains.
Not walls.
Interruptions.
His heart carried an imposed rhythm, capable of emergency shutdown.
His brain bore a hesitation lattice, inserting micro-delays under specific chakra patterns.
His spine held a crude override, capable of hijacking motion.
Failsafes.
Not domination.
Which meant something crucial.
They expected him to think.
Good.
Akira let his shoulders sag.
"You're right," he said softly. "I see the pattern. I thought, I have showed them my usefulness, but it seems not enough, I don't like this… but I understand the reality."
Black Zetsu's smile widened. On a face like his, it was less an expression and more a distortion.
The hook had set.
What Black Zetsu did not see was Akira's real work beginning.
He catalogued everything. The faint tightening behind his eyes when certain thoughts formed.
The delay between intention and motion. The way his chakra stuttered when anger rose too sharply.
Conditional activation.
Not absolute.
That meant loopholes.
Zetsu leaned back. "Rest. Recovery is important. We will speak again."
Akira nodded faintly.
"Yes," he said. "I'll need time. Madara Uchiha is still alive… please thank him for me."
Black Zetsu did not answer.
He dissolved back into shadow, satisfied.
The moment the presence vanished, Akira's eyes sharpened.
All right. You want me to be a tool.
Then he would do what all good tools did.
He would learn the limits of the hand that wielded him.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Black Zetsu had waited a thousand years.
Akira smiled inwardly.
He could wait too.
Just not that long. Just another few months..