Chapter 137: Where Did That Huge Wood Release Experiment Go?
Jiraiya caught the awkward, heavy silence hanging between his teammates. Their clumsy attempts at concern tugged at something deep in his chest, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a faint, reassuring smile.
"Don't worry," he murmured, his voice steady. "I know what needs to be done."
Beneath that calm facade, however, a storm of unspoken thoughts raged. There was a crucial detail he had kept hidden from them. During the chaotic clash when Kō had lunged at the Hokage, that lethal kunai had been aimed flawlessly at Jiraiya's heart. The sheer difference in their combat prowess was an impossible chasm; dodging had been a physical impossibility. By all rights, he should be a corpse cooling on the stone floor right now.
Yet, the cold steel had pierced his flesh just a fraction of an inch off-center. That microscopic deviation was the sole reason his heart was still beating.
A mistake? Not a chance. He had sparred with Kō enough times to know her terrifying precision with a blade. She simply didn't miss.
Then there was the genjutsu. The legendary Mangekyo Sharingan was infamous for dragging its victims into abyssal nightmares, tearing their minds apart with unspeakable horrors. So why had his vision been bathed in warmth? Why had she trapped him in a beautiful, gentle dream?
Skeptics would call his reasoning far-fetched, a desperate delusion clinging to a traitorous friend. Jiraiya's fists clenched until his knuckles turned white. He absolutely refused to accept that it was merely a delusion.
Tsunade had to have sensed the discrepancies too. It explained why she was anchoring herself so stubbornly to her gut intuition. An invisible, suffocating fog—like the shadow of some giant, unseen hand—was smothering the truth, keeping them entirely in the dark.
Jiraiya's eyes hardened with resolve. If a fog blinded them, he would just have to forge a blade sharp enough to cut right through it. Since the three of them shared the exact same gnawing suspicion, they couldn't just sit idly by. Every action left a footprint. If they couldn't see the traces, it simply meant they were too weak to spot them.
The path forward was clear. He needed to train until his bones ached, push his strength to new heights, and track Kō down. If he eventually discovered that their lingering faith was nothing more than the naive bias of former teammates—if she truly had fallen into absolute darkness—then he would draw his own blade and personally send her to the afterlife.
But if there was even a sliver of hidden truth, he would unearth it, no matter the bloody cost. Whatever sins or blame awaited at the end of that road, they would shoulder the crushing weight together. This was the promise he had made—to believe in her. So, even while standing amidst the wreckage of this terrible reality, Jiraiya chose to place his chips on Kō. One last time.
Naturally, breathing a single word of this to Teacher Hiruzen was out of the question. The old man would probably lock him in a detention cell or beat some sense into him.
Staring up at the drifting clouds, Jiraiya made a silent, unbreakable vow. Kō, I won't give up.
A thousand miles away, the subject of that dramatic vow was currently trudging through the wilderness behind Black Zetsu.
Without warning, an icy chill skittered down Kō's spine. She violently shivered, letting out a loud, ungraceful sneeze that echoed through the quiet woods. She rubbed her nose, blinking in confusion. Was she catching a cold with this overpowered body? Pulling her collar up, Kō hunched her shoulders and quickened her pace, her boots crunching over the dirt as she hurried to keep up with the shadowy mastermind.
Guided by Black Zetsu's signature Mayfly Technique, the duo smoothly phased through the earth, eventually emerging into a hidden underground base located deep within the borders of the Land of Hot Springs.
The cavernous hideout was dead silent. A heavy, stale air hung in the corridors, devoid of any living presence. The only sign that anyone had ever been there were a few ominous, dried bloodstains splattered across the cold stone floor.
Black Zetsu paused, his yellow eyes narrowing in the gloom. Assuming his sensory perception was merely acting up, he began to sweep the facility. He drifted from room to room, checking every shadowy corner. Nothing. A dark, bubbling irritation began to rise in his chest. Suppressing his mounting fury, he phased back up to the surface, scouring the dense forest above the base and thoroughly investigating every single spot Yue was known to frequent.
He didn't find so much as a single stray hair.
Black Zetsu stood frozen in the middle of the clearing. Where in the world did my massive Wood Release experiment go?! How could a living, breathing, incredibly valuable test subject just vanish into thin air?
The humanoid entity stared fixedly down at the entrance of the empty base. A furious, blinding rage erupted within him, causing his inky black form to physically twist and ripple with unstable chakra. Before he had departed on his last errand, he had explicitly threatened that insufferable brat, ordering her to stay put in the base and reflect on her actions. So she had completely ignored him, hadn't she?
His pitch-black fingers curled into sharp claws. The moment he dragged her back, he was going to snap both of her legs like twigs so she could never wander off again. No, that wasn't enough. He would carve one hundred and eight agonizing Curse Marks directly into her flesh. He would make sure she truly understood the terrifying, inescapable might of Lord Black Zetsu!
Down below, Kō waited in the center of the main laboratory, her face a mask of perfect, deadpan innocence.
When Black Zetsu finally phased back through the ceiling, practically vibrating with homicidal rage, she put on a little show. She wandered through a few of the adjacent rooms, pretending to search the empty corners, before turning back to him. She blinked her large eyes, looking utterly surprised at the sight of Black Zetsu, who currently looked like a petrified statue of pure wrath.
"Lord Black Zetsu?" Kō tilted her head, her voice dripping with flawless, shameless curiosity. "Didn't you tell me our grand plan had another teammate waiting for us? Where is he?"
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