Chapter 144: Jiraiya, Long Time No See
Deep beneath the desolate crags of the Mountains' Graveyard, Black Zetsu had established a brand-new subterranean base.
The location was perfectly secluded, entirely devoid of human traffic. Even if massive chakra fluctuations occurred during their experiments with the Rinnegan, the thick layers of rock and the natural isolation of the graveyard above would completely mask their activities.
Following the incident where Ye was entirely consumed by Mie, Black Zetsu had taken the initiative to transplant the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan directly into Mie's eye sockets. Bolstered by the mysterious inheritance of Sōjin, Mie adapted to the experimental body with terrifying efficiency. It did not take long for the Eternal Mangekyo to undergo its final, miraculous evolution, blooming into the legendary Rinnegan.
When those iconic ripple patterns finally stabilized in her eyes, Black Zetsu released a long, heavy exhale, feeling a massive weight lift from his shoulders.
The sudden disappearance of Ye had been far too abrupt. There had been zero warning signs before Mie simply swallowed the other vessel whole, an anomaly that had put Black Zetsu on high alert. He had spent the following weeks testing Mie from every conceivable angle, searching for any flaws or signs of rebellion, but found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
, the specialized Curse Mark he intended to plant on Mie remained exactly the same as his previous designs. The moment he applied it, Mie's overwhelming internal chakra simply devoured the mark, neutralizing his control methods.
His attempts to control her had not gone unpunished. For his overstepping, Mie had beaten him ruthlessly on several occasions. She had even gone so far as to seal his physical form and toss him carelessly into a shallow mass grave, leaving him to soak in the freezing mud and pouring rain for days on end.
Through these miserable experiences, Black Zetsu confirmed one absolute truth. This was indeed the lawless, unhinged Mie, a maniac who genuinely took the destruction of the entire world as her sacred mission.
Truthfully, he had never been able to wrap his head around the existence of this so-called Sōjin. There was not a single scrap of legend, myth, or historical text in the entire Ninja World that mentioned such a deity. It was not until the Sengoku Period that this entity supposedly manifested, followed shortly by a bizarre lineage of successors.
Black Zetsu had even questioned the logic of it all. If this Sōjin had truly spread chakra across the globe ten thousand years ago, why was the Ninja World of a mere thousand years ago still trapped in such a primitive, backward era?
Mie's explanation was delivered with absolute, fanatical conviction. She claimed that civilization had indeed reached an unfathomable peak of advancement ten thousand years ago. However, their endless, petty warfare had deeply angered Lord Sōjin, prompting him to descend and wipe the slate clean. Although the total annihilation was halted at the last moment, leaving behind a few scattered sparks of humanity, the grand civilization itself was reduced to ash. That, she claimed, was why the world appeared so primitive a millennium ago.
The logic of her story was internally consistent, but there was absolutely zero physical evidence to back it up. Then again, who could possibly verify events from ten thousand years in the past?
Black Zetsu eventually decided to stop giving himself a headache over the details. As long as Mie remained a functional, devastatingly powerful pawn on the board, he could not care less about the existence of Sōjin. All that mattered was using her Rinnegan to save his Mother.
Standing in the dim light of the cavern, Black Zetsu began to calculate their current military assets.
"Mie, how goes the recovery of your abilities?" he asked, his raspy voice echoing off the stone walls. "Are you capable of assassinating the Fourth Hokage yet?"
Now that the Rinnegan had fully awakened, summoning the Gedo Statue was merely a matter of time. Black Zetsu's mind was already spinning webs, plotting the most efficient way to rip the Nine-Tails straight out of Mutsuki Ida's grasp.
His question clearly struck a nerve. Mie slowly turned her head, fixing him with a deeply sinister glare. Without a single word of warning, her hands blurred through a sequence of seals, and a vicious sealing technique hurtled straight toward his face.
This exact scenario played out on a near-daily basis within the base. Black Zetsu, entirely accustomed to her explosive temper, melted smoothly into the cavern floor to dodge the attack, his tone remaining perfectly flat.
"Mie, I have told you time and time again. I am the living will of Lord Sōjin. Every phase of this grand design is under my direct control, and your current strength is merely one part of the specific plan I have customized for you."
Mie let out a cold, mocking sneer. She looked entirely unconvinced, her posture radiating hostility, but she eventually lowered her hands and spoke with immense reluctance.
"Even though I have lost half of my original power and a portion of my inheritance, I remain Lord Sōjin's most outstanding successor. You would do well to remember your place and stop questioning me. Once I have fully reclaimed my lost power, slaughtering a mere Fourth Hokage will be as simple as crushing a bug."
Black Zetsu mentally rolled his eyes. She talked a massive game, yet she still lacked the actual strength to back it up. He had no idea where she drew such boundless arrogance from. If she continued acting this haughty, she would inevitably end up just like Uchiha Setsuna, dead and useless.
He realized he needed to keep a much tighter leash on her. It would be a catastrophic setback if such a perfectly molded tool went out and got herself killed over a bruised ego.
"And how exactly do you plan to reclaim this lost inheritance?" Black Zetsu asked, trying to sound accommodating. "Do you have any actual leads? Uchiha Kou and I can assist you in tracking them down."
"Mind your own business!"
Mie spun on her heel, marching straight back into her private quarters and slamming the heavy stone door shut, leaving Black Zetsu standing alone in the corridor.
If she were not the absolute most critical component required to summon the Gedo Statue and unseal Mother, Black Zetsu would have never tolerated such blatant disrespect.
Suppressing a heavy sigh of exasperation, he shifted his gaze toward the corner of the room. Uchiha Kou stood there, her expression entirely blank, her posture rigid and disciplined. Looking at her brought a wave of genuine comfort to Black Zetsu's stressed mind. These Root Ninja from the alternate world were truly a marvel of conditioning.
They were the perfect, versatile tools. They could fight on the front lines, assassinate targets without a shred of hesitation, and even assist in complex biological experiments. Black Zetsu had zero doubts that if Uchiha Kou decided to dedicate her life entirely to research, she would easily become the greatest scientific mind in the modern Ninja World.
Over the past few years, Uchiha Kou had developed a habit of slaughtering any Konoha shinobi she happened to cross paths with. Whenever she grew bored of sitting around the underground base, she would simply wander out into the wilderness and return a few days later, leaving a trail of dead Konoha ninja in her wake.
This consistent, ruthless behavior made Black Zetsu feel entirely at ease regarding her loyalties.
"Uchiha Kou," Black Zetsu called out, his tone shifting to one of authority. "Intelligence suggests that the Seven-Tails is currently without a stable host. Go out and capture the beast. Bring it back here. I have a specific use for it."
He had recently made contact with the leadership of the Hidden Sky Village. The ambitious rulers of that faction had been remarkably easy to manipulate, swallowing his lies without a second thought. While the actual shinobi of the Sky Village were laughably weak in direct combat, they possessed a massive Mobile Fortress. As long as they secured a massive enough chakra source to power its core, that flying fortress would become an apocalyptic weapon.
Uchiha Kou possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan, a visual prowess that naturally suppressed and controlled Tailed Beasts. She was the absolute best tool he had for this capture mission. Black Zetsu felt a surge of confidence, eager to secure the beast and upgrade the Mobile Fortress for his own ends.
"Yes, Lord Black Zetsu."
Uchiha Kou offered a crisp nod, turning on her heel and exiting the underground facility. As she walked up the winding tunnels toward the surface, her steps grew noticeably lighter, carrying a cheerful rhythm.
'Finally,'she thought to herself.'Once I drag that giant bug back here, this persona can officially go offline.'
This exhausting triple-boxing routine, juggling three entirely different identities simultaneously for five grueling years, was finally approaching a perfect conclusion. It was a milestone genuinely worth celebrating.
When the time came to pull the plug on this act, she fully intended to fleece Black Zetsu for one last massive payout. She almost felt a twinge of pity for the ancient manipulator. Not only was he constantly being chased around and beaten black and blue by Mie, but he was also completely oblivious to the fact that his most loyal subordinate was about to scam him blind.
A quiet snort of amusement escaped her lips. She really was a piece of work.
Several days later, deep within a dense, sun-dappled forest, Uchiha Kou found her path blocked by an old acquaintance. Well, technically speaking, they were not acquainted at all. The memories and experiences of her various clones were not shared across a hive mind.
She stopped on a thick tree branch, looking down at the massive, murderous figure of Blue B. Kou let out a slow, disappointed sigh and shook her head.
Years ago, she had placed Blue B under a powerful genjutsu to control his actions. However, his core consciousness had remained entirely awake and aware of everything happening around him while his body moved against his will. Because of that lingering trauma, the former Jinchuriki had spent the last several years hunting her across the continent. She had managed to avoid his tracking every single time, right up until today.
She really should have checked her horoscope before leaving the base.
"Uchiha Kou!" Blue B roared, his voice distorted by rage.
Red, bubbling chakra erupted from his skin as he instantly entered a semi-Tailed Beast state, launching himself up into the canopy like a living cannonball.
Kou did not even blink. Her black eyes spun, the complex pinwheel pattern of the Mangekyo Sharingan locking into place. Ribs of ethereal, glowing chakra burst from her spine, rapidly forming the skeletal structure of the Susanoo.
The ensuing clash was loud, destructive, and entirely one-sided. Blue B was not a perfect Jinchuriki. He lacked the overwhelming, synchronized combat power of someone like Killer Bee, who could actually trade blows with elite Uchiha. Within minutes, the massive, spectral hand of the Susanoo had Blue B pinned face-first into the dirt, grinding his struggling form into the forest floor until the chakra cloak sputtered and died.
Having thoroughly dealt with the nuisance, Kou dismissed her glowing avatar, turned her back on the unconscious man, and continued her journey.
Later that afternoon, Kou found herself passing through a bustling civilian town. Bright banners were strung between the rooftops, and the streets were packed with cheering crowds. It appeared they were hosting a local Tug-of-war Festival.
Finding herself in a rare, relaxed mood, Kou applied a simple Transformation Technique to alter her striking features and casually strolled into the thick of the crowd.
Black Zetsu's bases were always built dozens of meters underground. They were pitch black, suffocatingly damp, and gloomy all day long. It was genuinely no place for a living human being to spend their time.
To earn the privilege of wandering out into the sunlight and slacking off whenever she pleased, she had put in an absurd amount of hard work. She had deliberately blackened her own reputation, carefully shaping the Uchiha Kou persona into an atrocious, bloodthirsty demon in the eyes of the world.
If a suitable opportunity for a massacre did not exist, she simply created one. As a result, she was now an existence that every single hidden village in the Ninja World wanted dead. If she did not possess god-tier evasion and hiding skills, she would have been chopped into mincemeat by ANBU death squads years ago.
She wove gracefully through the dense crowd, stopping at various roadside stalls to buy skewers of grilled meat and sweet dumplings. The lively bustle of the human world was incredibly soothing. It was infinitely more pleasing to the eye than staring at that giant puddle of depressing black mud back at the base.
As she walked, a brightly painted Dart Wheel caught her eye. Kou stopped, a wave of nostalgia hitting her. She suddenly wanted to play a few rounds.
The very last time she had played this specific carnival game, she had been wandering through the Land of Hot Springs with Jiraiya.
Stepping up to the booth, she paid the vendor and accepted a handful of cheap, wooden darts. However, as she stood behind the throwing line, a wave of awkwardness washed over her. For a shinobi of her caliber, playing a civilian throwing game was essentially cheating. It felt a bit like bullying the poor stall owner.
It would be far too embarrassing to perfectly nail the bullseye on every single throw, so she scanned the assortment of cheap prizes laid out on the ground. Spotting a simple, carved fish-shaped pendant, she adjusted her grip, planning to intentionally aim for the lower-tier scoring ring.
Just as she pulled her arm back to throw, she heard the heavy, uncoordinated shuffling of boots approaching rapidly from her blind spot. A foul stench of cheap alcohol washed over her a split second before a civilian man lunged in her direction, completely off-balance.
Kou merely shifted her weight, taking a single, casual half-step to the side.
The drunkard missed her entirely and planted his face directly into the dirt path with a heavy thud. He scrambled to his hands and knees, spitting dirt and cursing loudly. When he looked up and saw the slender, unassuming form Kou had transformed into, his drunken courage flared. He immediately climbed to his feet, jabbing a thick finger in her direction and spewing a string of vulgar insults.
"You damn brat, are you completely blind?! How dare you bump into me?!"
Not content with merely shouting, the drunkard's face flushed purple with rage. He began flailing his thick arms, stepping aggressively into her personal space, clearly intending to get physical.
Kou stared at him, her expression entirely deadpan.
'Good grief,'she thought,'this idiot really didn't check who he was picking a fight with.'
She was an internationally wanted S-Rank rogue ninja. She had slaughtered entire platoons of elite shinobi without breaking a sweat. And now, such a terrifying figure was actually being harassed in broad daylight by a stumbling, uncoordinated civilian.
The cheap wooden dart began to spin effortlessly between her slender fingers. She tilted her head slightly, genuinely wondering which major artery would be the most amusing place to stick it.
Right at that exact moment, a very sunny-looking young man stepped smoothly out of the surrounding crowd. Before the drunkard could swing his arm, the young man reached out, clamped a hand over the drunk's wrist, and effortlessly pinned the man's arm squarely behind his back.
A bright, disarming smile rested on the young man's face, but his tone carried a heavy, obvious force.
"Sir, I believe you have had far too much to drink. You really should apologize to my friend."
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