Chapter 133: The Eyes Have Opened
Things seemed to have reached an absolute dead end.
Aside from Jiraiya and the other two who sensed an underlying wrongness to the situation, the rest of the village saw no problem at all. The trio had exhausted every possible angle, turning the evidence over and over in their minds, yet they found zero room to maneuver.
Jiraiya slumped in his chair, his broad shoulders sagging under the weight of despair. He ran a rough hand over his face.
"Orochimaru," he began, his voice strained. "You've always been sharper than me. You see the angles everyone else misses. You even studied interrogation psychology and scored perfectly. Tell me straight—does Kou actually have a legitimate reason to attack Hokage-sama?"
"Do you want the truth, or do you want a lie?" Orochimaru asked, his golden eyes unreadable.
Jiraiya's jaw tightened. "The truth!"
"Yes," Orochimaru replied smoothly.
The last remnants of color drained from Jiraiya's face. Before the toad sage could spiral further, Orochimaru continued, his tone shifting to something more contemplative. "But if something feels wrong, it usually is. My intuition tells me there is a glaring issue hidden beneath the surface of this matter. Unfortunately, our inability to find a single shred of proof is also a reality we must face."
...
Three days later, deep within the cold, stone walls of the Interrogation Department.
The Head of Interrogation and the Head of the Yamanaka Clan stood over their prisoner for yet another grueling session.
Uchiha Kou lay crumpled on the unforgiving floor, her spirit completely dissipated. Her breathing was shallow, her body trembling from the sheer exhaustion of continuous mental probing.
A deep, suffocating confusion washed over her. Why had she ended up like this? Was she truly in the wrong? Why was everyone else allowed to live so happily in the light, while she was the only one left abandoned in the dark, discarded and broken?
No. Her fingers twitched against the cold stone. It was the world that was wrong, not her.
As the Yamanaka Clan Head forcefully invaded her mental landscape once more, the sheer, tearing agony of the intrusion pushed her past her breaking point. In the midst of that extreme pain, Kou suddenly snapped her eyes open. Her crimson irises flared to life, the three tomoe spinning frantically around her pupils.
She squeezed out the very last, desperate remnants of Chakra hidden within her battered cells, pushing her visual prowess to its absolute limit. The spinning tomoe blurred, bleeding together until her Sharingan violently transformed, locking into the complex, bladed pattern of the Mangekyo Sharingan.
The surge of power was immense, but her broken body could not sustain it. In the very next second, her eyes rolled back, and she lost consciousness, slipping into a deep coma.
"Mangekyo Sharingan?!" the Head of Interrogation cried out, stumbling back in sheer alarm.
At that exact moment, the Head of the Yamanaka Clan broke his hand seal, gasping for air. He had finally dug out the core piece of information they had been searching for within Uchiha Kou's fractured mind.
"No one ordered me; it was my own decision to assassinate Hokage-sama," the Yamanaka Head recited, his voice echoing in the damp cell. "Why can everyone in Konoha receive her protection, yet I alone am excluded?"
He paused, swallowing hard before revealing the final, damning thought. "This world is abnormal. Hiruzen-sama is the Hokage, and Danzo-sama is the Assistant. I am merely correcting a mistake. I did nothing wrong. I am a Root Ninja, codename Kou, a subordinate of Danzo-sama."
The interrogators exchanged grim looks. They had uncovered the sentiments of the first two sentences during previous sessions, but that final declaration was the most critical.
The Head of Interrogation hissed through his teeth, staring at the transcribed results. If Hokage-sama saw this specific reasoning, wouldn't a massive political storm erupt around the Assistant and Advisor Danzo?
But the political fallout was above their pay grade. Without a second thought, the Head of Interrogation sealed the intelligence scroll and immediately dispatched it to the Hokage's office.
...
Hidden within the shadows of the prison, Black Zetsu watched the entire ordeal unfold. Seeing Uchiha Kou awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan amidst her extreme pain, he finally breathed a long, raspy sigh of relief.
Kou was hanging on by a single thread. Her body was covered in brutal wounds, her Chakra tightly sealed by the ANBU restraints. Now that the interrogation intelligence had been handed over, her execution was all but guaranteed.
Once the interrogators and guards cleared out of the cell block, leaving the unconscious girl lying alone on the floor, Black Zetsu melted out of the walls.
He rushed to her side and immediately began his treatment. The complex Chakra seals binding her wrists and neck were child's play to him; he dismantled them all in a matter of seconds. Her damaged spiritual power was of no concern—he was a spiritual entity himself and could stabilize her mind. As for her severe physical injuries, healing ninjutsu wasn't his strong suit, but he had come prepared. He pulled out several high-tier Healing Scrolls he had stolen earlier and activated them all at once, bathing Kou's battered body in soothing green light.
After a long while, Uchiha Kou's eyelashes fluttered. She slowly opened her eyes.
"...Black Zetsu-sama!"
Seeing his dark, familiar form hovering over her, a tiny spark of hope seemed to ignite within her, but it was quickly swallowed by a dazed, hollow expression. "I didn't want to assassinate Hokage-sama... but even I don't know why I did it."
Tears welled in her eyes. "Black Zetsu-sama, tell me, what exactly is the meaning of my existence? Should I have died long ago instead of living so ignobly?"
Uchiha Kou had completely lost her will to live. She was entirely unmoored—which was exactly the scene Black Zetsu was thrilled to witness.
He straightened up, striking the standard, imposing pose of a worldly savior, and began to entice her with a low, raspy, hypnotic voice.
"What matters is not what you have done, but what you want to do."
He leaned in closer. "Death is merely a cowardly excuse to escape reality. But what if I told you there is a way to truly be happy?"
Kou stared at him, her breath hitching.
"Everyone's existence has its own reason," Black Zetsu continued smoothly. "Just as your elder brother sacrificed himself to save you, you now carry his life within yours. Your life is no longer just your own. What you must do now is find a way to resurrect him. That way, you can both be happy together."
Uchiha Kou's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "If a person dies... can they really be resurrected?"
"Of course!"
Word by word, Black Zetsu painted a beautiful, intoxicating picture of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. He emphasized that as long as the grand genjutsu was activated, the entire world would fall into a perfect dream where they could reunite with those who had passed away.
Everyone would be happy. There would be no more war, no more bloody strife, and no more abandonment. All unpleasantness and worldly worries would simply vanish. Everyone would find their perfect peace—including Jiraiya.
Seeing the fanatical light slowly returning to Uchiha Kou's eyes, Black Zetsu knew the fruit was ripe for the picking. He opened his arms wide, extending his grand invitation.
"Welcome. Join the Moon Eye Plan."
A feverish devotion had already taken root in Kou's expression. Thanks to Black Zetsu's stolen medical scrolls, she had regained enough strength to push herself up from the floor.
"Thank you, Black Zetsu-sama, for giving me this opportunity," she vowed, her voice trembling with newfound purpose. "I will definitely work hard to activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Black Zetsu was thoroughly satisfied. Very much so.
He mentally praised the Black Zetsu from the other world. That guy really knew how to pick prime candidates, sending such a perfectly broken and malleable helper straight into his hands.
"What is your Mangekyo ability?" he asked, eager to see the fruits of his labor.
Kou reached up, her fingertips lightly brushing the skin beneath her eyes.
The power residing in these eyes was actually Stelle's ultimate trump card, a devastating force originally intended for use during the Fourth Great Ninja War. Previously, Stelle had only cheated slightly when fighting the Four Kage, using this visual prowess just once against the Second Raikage to instantly obliterate him.
However, Stelle possessed a massive arsenal of abilities, and as her clone, Kou shared access to that vast pool. She didn't need to reveal everything; she could simply mention a couple of them to satisfy him.
"The left eye's ability is Multiplicative Increase," Kou explained, her tone steadying. "It allows me to significantly multiply my speed, physical strength, and Chakra output when facing enemies who are stronger than myself."
She lowered her hand. "The right eye's ability is Plunder and Copy. It allows me to copy the absolute strongest ability of anyone I have ever seen, storing it to use as my own ultimate move. However, after I use that copied move, the right eye's ability cannot be used again for ten years."
Listening to her introduction, Black Zetsu crossed his arms. He felt the abilities were a bit mediocre. They certainly didn't seem as overwhelmingly useful as Uchiha Setsuna's temporal powers, and he felt a wave of dismissive disappointment wash over him.
Then, Kou spoke again. "I have just analyzed and copied the Fourth Hokage's strongest move in my mind: Hell Realm Domain."
Black Zetsu froze.
He felt his dark, viscous body begin to tremble uncontrollably with sheer excitement. Ahhh! He was so thrilled he simply couldn't stop shaking.
So these eyes were this terrifyingly powerful! There was no need for her to witness the actual activation process or the hand seals of the technique; she only needed to have seen the ability in action once, and her eye could automatically deduce and replicate it within her mind!
Back during the summit, when Ida Mutzuki's catastrophic move was revealed, it had effortlessly taken down the Four Kage in one fell swoop. Her sheer destructive strength was not inferior to Senju Hashirama or Uchiha Madara in the slightest. In fact, to this day, no one in the ninja world even fully understood the mechanics of that terrifying technique.
And now, Uchiha Kou had acquired it. With such a devastating technique at their disposal, the security of their future plans had skyrocketed to an unimaginable level.
Sure enough, he realized he had been far too hasty before by trying to advance the plot without letting Uchiha Kou awaken her eyes first. If she had opened them earlier, their ultimate goal would have been achieved long ago.
He composed himself, his yellow eyes gleaming in the dark. He spoke in a deep, authoritative voice. "Right now, our resurrection plan is still missing a few critical items. Those items are currently kept inside the ninja tool pouch at Ida Mutzuki's waist. As long as you can secure that ninja tool pouch, we can immediately proceed with the next phase of the plan."
Uchiha Kou didn't flinch at the daunting task. Instead, the fanatical look in her eyes only deepened. "How can I get close enough to her?"
"You won't need to. She will appear on her own," Black Zetsu sneered softly. "Ida Mutzuki harbors a very specific kind of sentiment toward the Uchiha Clan. Plus, now that you have awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan, she will inevitably come hunting for you later to take your eyes. Her strength is currently impaired from her previous battles. When she arrives, you just need to trap her within a Barrier to secure the pouch."
Kou bowed her head in absolute submission. "Yes, Black Zetsu-sama. I will definitely work hard to get the eyes."
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