Chapter 154: Uchiha Kou Starts Acting for Black Zetsu Again
Deep within the damp, oppressive confines of Black Zetsu's underground base, Uchiha Kou tossed a heavy sealing scroll onto the stone table. Inside it lay the captured Seven-Tails.
Black Zetsu emerged from the shadows, his yellow eyes narrowing as he stared at the scroll, then at her. She had been gone far longer than anticipated. Paranoia was woven into his very existence; he had never fully trusted a single soul in this world, and naturally, that absolute suspicion extended to Uchiha Kou.
"Why did it take so long?" his raspy voice echoed off the cavern walls.
Kou kept her expression perfectly neutral, smoothly using the Kumogakure ninja forces as her alibi.
"Lord Black Zetsu, you are well aware of my reputation in the outside world," she replied, her tone laced with just the right amount of feigned exhaustion. "If I so much as leak a fraction of my whereabouts, pursuers swarm like flies. I was delayed simply because I had to slaughter a few persistent Kumogakure assassination squads along the way."
Currently, she and Mie had yet to produce the promised White Zetsu army for him. Without that vast network of surveillance clones at his disposal, Black Zetsu's intelligence gathering was severely crippled, making him incredibly easy to blindside.
He slithered forward and carefully inspected the complex sealing formulas binding the Seven-Tails' scroll. Finding no tampering or structural flaws, he decided not to pursue the interrogation further. However, his sadistic nature demanded a toll. Without a word of warning, he activated the curse mark planted on her body.
A sharp, agonizing spike of pain erupted directly from her heart. Kou gasped, her knees buckling as she collapsed heavily onto the cold stone floor.
"Next time, I hope you do not waste my precious time," Black Zetsu sneered, snatching the scroll and sinking into the ground to leave.
Kou remained on the floor until his presence completely vanished. Slowly, she lifted a hand and wiped a thin trail of blood from the corner of her mouth. As she pushed herself up, a chilling, utterly deranged smile spread across her face, directed at the empty space where he had just stood.
She committed this grudge to memory. In the future, she would personally extract her revenge. Perhaps slicing Black Zetsu into exactly one hundred and eight distinct pieces would be a fitting start.
Meanwhile, Black Zetsu carried the Seven-Tails' scroll straight to Mie's laboratory, instructing him to reinforce the containment seals.
Watching Mie work, Black Zetsu marveled internally. He discovered that Mie's mastery over Sealing Techniques was nothing short of extraordinary—a terrifyingly efficient weapon perfectly tailored for suppressing Tailed Beasts. It was a deep pity that Mie had not yet managed to summon the Gedo Statue. If that massive vessel were available, they could have already initiated the grand process of extracting and collecting the beasts.
Later that night, Black Zetsu returned to the base from a brief scouting excursion. The moment he stepped through the entrance, he nearly collided head-on with Kou. She was sprinting frantically down the corridor, her breathing ragged, glancing over her shoulder as if a reaper were hot on her heels.
Recalling that Mie had violently disciplined Kou on several previous occasions, Black Zetsu immediately assumed she had provoked the volatile researcher once again.
"What did you do to provoke her this time..." he began, his tone dripping with exasperation.
Before he could finish his sentence, the Mangekyo Sharingan in Kou's right eye spun wildly. A forbidden visual technique flared to life. In a fraction of a second, a suffocating purple domain expanded outward, warping the spatial fabric of the corridor and completely trapping Black Zetsu inside.
His pitch-black, viscous body trembled violently. This was simply unbelievable.
Uchiha Kou had actually initiated a direct attack against him. What in the world was she trying to achieve?
Unlike Ida Mutzuki, who relied heavily on specialized ninja tools to help her spatial maneuvers, Kou's domain was projected and maintained purely through the raw ocular power of her eyes.
Suspended within the purple void, Black Zetsu quickly realized that Kou was merely confining him, making no move to strike. This realization only deepened his bewilderment.
While his mind raced, calculating exactly how he would torture and punish Kou the moment this barrier dropped, the purple dome above him suddenly shuddered. A deafening crack echoed through the space as a tremendously heavy blow from the outside fractured the barrier.
The domain shattered.
Mie stood before him, her entire figure radiating an aura of pure, unadulterated slaughter. But it was her face that made Black Zetsu freeze. Where her right eye should have been, there was now only a gruesome, gaping bloody hole. Crimson streams cascaded down her cheek, staining her clothes. The precious Rinnegan that had occupied that socket was completely gone.
She locked her remaining eye on him and spoke in a voice that sounded like grinding tombstones: "Uchiha Kou stole the Rinnegan from my right eye. I remember she is your subordinate, Black Zetsu. You had better give me a perfect explanation."
Explain? What could Black Zetsu possibly explain?!
His mind completely flatlined. He was utterly, hopelessly dumbfounded.
He could no longer count how many times he had watched legendary eyes vanish right in front of his face. He only knew that this entire agonizing saga of searching for the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and awakening the Rinnegan had been a miserable, soul-crushing torment.
He wanted the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, and it was lost. He finally recovered the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and managed to awaken the Rinnegan, and now the Rinnegan was lost. Again. And again!
Aaaaaah!
He just wanted a single, functioning Rinnegan! Could this world please stop torturing him?!
Mother, why didn't you bestow upon him combat power to match his intellect when you created him? If he had overwhelming strength, he wouldn't have to constantly recruit these unstable, backstabbing experts from across the continent!
Following the immense, paralyzing shock came a tidal wave of endless, boiling rage.
"What is there to explain?!" Black Zetsu let out a hoarse, desperate roar, his mental state fracturing into a million pieces. "The only thing that matters now is finding that Rinnegan! We can discuss the rest when we get it back!"
Driven by sheer desperation, he led Mie out of the underground base, frantically tracking the residual chakra clues to hunt down Uchiha Kou. As they sped through the wilderness, Black Zetsu repeatedly formed the hand seals to activate the curse mark buried in Kou's chest.
Nothing happened.
Uchiha Kou seemed to have discovered a flawless method to suppress the seal, as he received absolutely zero feedback.
For the first time in his long, shadow-filled existence, Black Zetsu began to deeply doubt the efficacy of his own scientific creations. Such a perfectly designed curse mark failing to control a mere mortal—it defied all logic.
By all rights, a single thought should have been enough to detonate those ten layered curse marks, instantly liquefying Uchiha Kou's internal organs and rendering her paralyzed. Yet, she bounded through the forests, completely free of his control.
Could it be that the curse mark he had spent decades researching and perfecting was actually just a piece of absolute garbage?
Under the dim, unforgiving moonlight, the humanoid form of Black Zetsu looked as though it were on the verge of physically shattering, his edges blurring as if he might completely dissolve into the night sky out of sheer stress.
Running slightly behind him, Mie silently observed his mental breakdown. When she turned her head away, the corner of her bloodstained mouth curved upward into a sharp, deeply amused smirk.
Far to the north, in the Land of Frost.
Unlike the Land of Fire, where the climate was mild and forgiving year-round, this territory was locked in an eternal winter. Perennial snow blanketed the jagged mountain ridges, transforming the landscape into continuous, silver-white peaks that gleamed like oversized, jagged crystals under the moonlight.
A biting, sub-zero wind swept through the gorge, carrying shards of ice that stung the skin. Kato Dan involuntarily shivered, pulling his thick winter cloak tighter around his shoulders.
Ahead of him, Might Duy seemed entirely immune to the temperature. The man was still wearing his signature thin, green spandex suit, his thick eyebrows practically vibrating with energy as he dashed across the treacherous ice fields.
Without breaking stride, Duy flashed a brilliant thumbs-up over his shoulder. "The Springtime of Youth allows for no slack! Even if our mission is complete, we absolutely cannot neglect our physical training! Come on, let's race and see who reaches the gates of Konoha first!"
"He really is a monster, acting as if his muscles don't know the meaning of fatigue. I'm completely exhausted," muttered the unnamed Uchiha ninja running beside Dan, his breath pluming in the freezing air.
"Let's just catch up to him. I happen to deeply despise the climate in the Land of Frost anyway," Dan replied, channeling chakra to his feet.
He accelerated, leaping across a wide chasm. The Uchiha ninja sighed, pushing his tired legs to follow suit. Just as the three Konoha shinobi were about to engage in Duy's ridiculous footrace, the world around them shifted.
A catastrophic surge of chakra erupted from a distant mountain ridge. The sheer density of the energy was suffocating, carrying a terrifying, apocalyptic aura that made the falling snow violently reverse its trajectory.
The three men slammed to a halt, their boots skidding across the ice as they snapped their heads toward the source of the riotous energy.
Looming over the ridge, tearing through the fabric of the night, was a colossal, skeletal construct composed entirely of pitch-black chakra. It was a Susanoo, its massive half-body eclipsing the moon.
"Is that... a Susanoo?" the Uchiha ninja gasped, his Sharingan spinning to life in pure shock.
"A black one," Dan murmured, his eyes narrowing against the oppressive wind generated by the entity. "That belongs to Uchiha Kou. But who on earth is she fighting out here?"
Acting on pure instinct, the three shinobi immediately dove behind a cluster of snow-covered boulders, masking their signatures as they cautiously peered over the edge.
The black Susanoo radiated a pressure that felt like a physical weight pressing down on their lungs. The dark, towering figure resembled a storm cloud anchored to the earth, exceptionally prominent and terrifying against the pristine snowy backdrop.
From their vantage point, the terrain obscured Kou's opponent. All they could see were massive torrents of dark, ghastly black flames surging into the sky, completely enveloping the lower half of the Susanoo. These flames lacked any heat; instead, they exuded a cold, sinister energy that made Dan's skin crawl even more than the Susanoo itself.
In the blink of an eye, the sea of black flames condensed, twisting and solidifying into a massive, jagged greatsword. With a deafening screech of tearing air, the blade thrust upward, violently impaling the black Susanoo right through its armored chest.
The impact triggered a shockwave that shattered the surrounding glaciers. The Susanoo groaned under the devastating energy before violently fracturing. The black chakra shattered into countless fragments, dissolving into the freezing air like broken glass.
"From the looks of that exchange, it seems Uchiha Kou just lost," Might Duy whispered, his usual boisterous tone replaced by grave seriousness. "Should we move in to investigate?"
A battle of this apocalyptic scale was not something an ordinary squad could simply intervene in. However, the combatant was Uchiha Kou—an S-rank rogue ninja of Konoha. If they moved carefully, they might be able to secure vital intelligence regarding her movements or the identity of the monster capable of defeating her.
"Don't be reckless," Dan ordered, his hands already coming together to form a specific seal. "I will go investigate the epicenter first. You two stay hidden here and cover my body."
Activating the Spirit Transformation Technique, Dan's body slumped forward. His soul detached from his physical vessel, turning into an ethereal, invisible entity that zipped silently toward the distant mountain peak.
The closer his spirit drew to the battlefield, the more violent the residual energy fluctuations became, tearing at his ethereal form. When he finally crested the ridge and looked down at the scene of the clash, he found no bodies. There was only a completely ruined valley, scarred by massive, crisscrossing ravines—the devastating aftermath left behind by the black Susanoo's blade.
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