With the meeting over, I used my Byakugan to track Zetsu. Now that my dōjutsu had been revealed, people knew I could track and see them. And I had no doubt they would try to take measures to stop that.
But for now, they could do nothing.
This created an awkward situation of them knowing I might be watching, so since they didn't know if I was, they had to assume I was. Which meant everything they did, every action, was meant for me to see.
In the short term, this was dangerous. But also highly useful.
As it made it easy to find where Zetsu had gone off to, and he was clearly waiting for me, and on guard.
For that, I didn't blame him one bit. I wasted no time getting to the small room he had moved to after the meeting, closing the door behind me. I inspected the room carefully, checking to see if Obito was spying on me.
While I couldn't see his Kamui pocket dimension, I could see when he was poking a hole through it to listen in on what happened outside it.
"Zetsu, my child," I finally said once satisfied that we were alone.
My words came out with far more emotion than I had expected, but the moment I said it, accepted him as my son, I couldn't help it.
I had seen his suffering, his thousand years of planning, each plan, each scheme, all just to free me. All of it, proof of his love for his mother.
I wasn't the only one affected by my words, Zetsu froze completely, even the black half didn't expect my words. The white half didn't understand them, while the black half was in shock.
I could almost hear the gears turning in his mind, the disbelief, the sheer impossibility of what he had just heard.
"Who... Who are you?" Zetsu finally asked, his voice a trembling whisper. The black half was in control now, the white half's cheerful confusion suppressed by a thousand years of guarded secrecy.
"I think you know," I said, my voice soft, a stark contrast to the persona I had projected in front of the others. I slowly walked forward, stepping up to him. "My Zetsu," I whispered, and lifted my hands to his face.
He remained frozen, unable to react, despite the possible danger I might pose to him. It was clear he was not built for this, for this moment. He had planned for a thousand years, but how could he ever prepare for suddenly encountering me, before his plan succeeded?
"Squelch." The wet sound of flesh getting cut, followed by a dull crunch of bone getting pierced, suddenly filled the space between us.
There was no warning, no sign, no buildup, but from my hand, the one that went to touch the white side of his face, a bone had extended, instantly piercing through the white Zetsu, killing it instantly.
"Now we are alone, my Zetsu, my loyal son," I said, as I looked at the half that remained. The half that mattered, the white part? Nothing more than a random White Zetsu, nothing but a body to carry the black part.
The white didn't even know who I was, nor who Zetsu was, it truly believed that he was the will of Madara. It was an outsider, and for the coming talk, there was no room for outsiders.
Zetsu showed no reaction to the murder of his other half; it was but a tool for him. His entire attention was on me. From us this close, he could see the small horns hidden mostly under my hair. He could also sense my chakra as I gently touched his face.
His body seemed to melt, losing the structure of the White Zetsu, he turned into a liquid shadow, vaguely human in shape. Even so, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of love towards him.
"Mother?" he finally asked, a mix of emotions in his voice. Hope, fear, disbelief, and a profound, aching joy.
"I am here, my son," I said, my voice filled with a warmth I hadn't felt in a thousand years. "I am here."
For a moment, we just stood there, a mother and son reunited after an eternity. The world outside the room ceased to exist. There was only the two of us, and the thousand years of longing that separated us.
"How?" he asked, his voice still trembling. "How is this possible? I saw you sealed. I felt it. You were gone."
"I was," I said, my tone turning somber. "Your brothers, they sealed me away. And I am still sealed away. But... for some reason, I was awake, every moment, I was aware, and I struggled, struggled so much, and finally, I was able to awaken my Byakugan." I began explaining.
"I saw you, saw all the hard work you did, I saw what my two ungrateful sons did, how they spread my chakra, my blood, I saw it all," I continued. "I also saw all the ninjutsu they made, and one of them helped me. I was able to make one of my own, to let just a sliver of my chakra out, to escape, so I can guide you, help you."
It was impossible to explain the events that took place over a thousand years in a short amount of time. So I gave him the shortest explanation. "Surely you can feel it, my chakra, it is different," I said, as I gently placed my hand on his chest.
He didn't move at my touch, but I could feel the connection being forged. His chakra, a twisted, corrupted echo of my own, reaching out to me. He was a fragment of my will, a shadow given life, and now, the source of that shadow was before him.
He could indeed feel it, he was more sensitive to my chakra than anyone else, the chakra, it was very similar to the parts that remained inside him, but weak, far, far weaker, with a few small differences, but he couldn't deny that it shared the same source. It was indeed me.
"You are weak," he said, his tone a mix of concern and disappointment. "Your chakra... it is but a fraction of what it once was."
"I am but a shadow of my former self," I admitted. "A sliver of my consciousness, a fragment of my power. But it is enough. It has to be enough. And with your help, I will grow stronger. And we will complete the plan you have laid out."
He was silent for a long moment, his mind processing the information. He had dedicated his entire existence to my revival, and now, here I was. He honestly didn't know what to think. It was like someone who had worked day and night their entire life to do something, and then, before they did it, someone gave them the prize they had been working for all along.
You wouldn't know what to think, all that hard work... and for... well, not nothing, but the prize would feel hollow.
Because, if he was going to get it for nothing, why work so hard in the first place?
But he wasn't a child anymore; he had been alive for a thousand years. All that time, he had plotted, weaving schemes that spanned centuries.
So he recovered quickly. "Mother!" he surged over me, liquid shadow covering me.
And I allowed it, I allowed him to hug me.
Though he didn't remain silent for long, he didn't take long to enjoy this reunion. "Mother, please, tell me more about how you escaped, and what you need," he asked.
"A thousand years in the dark..." I said, as I slowly sat down, stroking the head of Black Zetsu as he stretched out, almost like Venom did at times. "I could do nothing but look, but I watched, I watched, and I learned. Ninjutsu was but one thing. I also watched the Uzumaki clan, I watched and learned all about their Fūinjutsu," I told him, as he seemed to understand where I was going with this.
"Sealing techniques... they were the means of my undoing, and so, I had to master them, had to ensure that any sealing technique, I would know how to counter, know their weaknesses." I had to explain to him how I had found the path to escape my own prison.
He listened intently, soaking in every word. He was still digesting the fact that I was here, that I was real, but he was also already thinking about the future. He was a strategist, a plotter, and my sudden appearance had thrown a wrench in his plans. But it was also an opportunity, a chance to accelerate the timeline.
"Fūinjutsu... the Uzumaki were indeed masters of the art," he said, his tone thoughtful. "But how could you escape using that? And how come you are like this?" he asked, still confused about how all this had happened.
"I created a technique that was part ninjutsu and part Fūinjutsu. It allowed me to take that tiny sliver of chakra that I had access to within the seal and send it out. That single sliver was reborn," I admitted. "That is what I am now, that tiny bit of chakra that escaped, reborn in a human body, all with the single purpose of helping you release the rest of me, you can think of me as merely a clone of myself," I explained.
He took it in, but I could see the confusion in his face, the disbelief that I had managed that, that my own seal was imperfect. "Then... you are not truly free? You are still trapped?"
"I am. The other half of me, the vast majority of my being, is still sealed away within the moon. This body you see before you is a vessel, a fragment, born of a desperate hope and a forbidden technique," I explained, my voice tinged with a thousand years of weariness. "But this fragment has a purpose. To find you. To guide you. And to ensure that the full scope of my power is returned to me."
He was quiet for a moment, the implications of my words sinking in. "A vessel... a fragment..." he murmured. "Then... you need me. You still need me to save you." He once more found his purpose. My sudden return had not made him obsolete; it had made him more important than ever.
"I will always need you, my son," I said, my voice filled with a warmth that I hadn't felt in an eternity. "You are my will, my shadow. And together, we will restore what was lost."
He nodded, a sense of purpose returning to him. "The plan... it is still the same, then? Gather the Tailed Beasts?"
"Yes," I smiled, "But, there are a few things we have to change and take into account, this is what I think."
(End of chapter)
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