Chapter 131: Black Zetsu's Terrible Luck
Stelle could have sidestepped the strike with her eyes closed. If she really wanted to, she had at least a hundred and eight different, highly creative methods to pin Uchiha Kou to the floor before he even blinked. Yet, in this crucial split-second, her reflexes appeared agonizingly sluggish. She fumbled, her fingers missing his wrist entirely.
Instead, in a display of desperate, clumsy panic, she caught the naked steel of his short sword.
The razor-sharp edge bit deep. With a sickening crunch of parting flesh and bone, the blade drove straight through the center of her palm. Dark, venomous blood immediately welled from the exit wound. The potent toxin coated on the metal flared through her veins like liquid fire, causing her vision to blur. Her knees buckled just a fraction, her body swaying as she played the part of a critically wounded victim to absolute perfection.
Hidden in the shadows, Black Zetsu practically vibrated with glee. He wanted to scream in sheer, unadulterated triumph. It's done. It's finally happening!
Ida Mutzuki's legendary combat prowess was crippled, the poison rapidly draining her strength. Uchiha Kou only needed to reach out and snatch the small ninja tool pouch strapped to her waist. Black Zetsu had scoured every miserable inch of Konoha for those eyes. He had turned the village upside down in secret. That unassuming little pouch was the absolute last place left to check. The Mangekyo Sharingan had to be inside.
Kou's hand darted forward, his fingers brushing the coarse fabric of Stelle's pouch.
Black Zetsu held his breath, savoring the taste of imminent victory.
Then, a blur of motion tore through the rain-slicked courtyard. Faster than lightning, a dark figure intercepted the attack. A vice-like grip clamped down on Kou's extended wrist. A sickening crack echoed through the night air as bones shattered under immense pressure.
Before Kou could even register the agony, a brutal kick slammed into his chest, sending him hurtling backward like a broken ragdoll. He crashed into the dirt, skidding through the mud. Before he could so much as twitch to get back up, a kunai whistled through the dark and pinned his shoulder blade directly to the earth.
Two Anbu operatives materialized from the gloom a heartbeat later, driving their knees into his spine and wrenching his uninjured arm behind his back, completely immobilizing him.
In the shadows, the twisted, triumphant grin on Black Zetsu's face froze solid.
What in the name of the Sage is Uchiha Kagami doing here?!
Black Zetsu's mind reeled in absolute disbelief. It was the dead of night! Why wasn't the man asleep in his bed? Why was he out prowling the streets with a heavily armed patrol team? Kagami had been running himself ragged all week—didn't the man ever rest? Why did he have to come looking for Ida Mutzuki right at this exact, miserable second?!
Black Zetsu ground his teeth so hard he nearly cracked them, phantom blood rising in his throat from sheer, suffocating rage. Just an inch! Just one more inch! Kou's fingertips had literally grazed the fabric of the pouch!
"Stelle! Are you alright?" Uchiha Kagami dropped to his knees beside her, his usually calm demeanor fractured by genuine panic. He reached out, his hands hovering anxiously over the gruesome, bleeding hole in her palm.
"Don't touch it," Stelle hissed, her voice strained as she played up the agony. "The blade... it's poisoned."
Gritting her teeth, she rapidly formed a series of one-handed hand seals with her uninjured left hand. A faint, glowing script crawled across her wrist, forming a localized Sealing Technique that forcefully contained the spreading black veins of venom to her right hand, locking the toxin away from her vital organs.
Less than an hour later, the harsh, sterile lights of the Konoha hospital illuminated the grim faces of the village's highest authority. The high-level quartet, who had barely managed to get a few hours of sleep, found themselves dragged right back into the thick of a crisis.
Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura stood with their arms crossed, their expressions dark as they watched a team of Medical-nin frantically analyze the dark, sludgy blood drawn from Stelle's wound. When Kagami finally delivered his report, revealing the identity of the assassin, both Hiruzen and Danzo simultaneously pinched the bridges of their noses. A massive, throbbing headache settled behind their eyes.
They had enjoyed barely a handful of peaceful days, and now Uchiha Kou was causing trouble again. He was just a standard Jonin! Was the man actively trying to tear the village apart from the inside out?
The lead Medical-nin stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow. "Hokage-sama, this toxin is exceptionally virulent. We cannot safely extract it at this moment. Fortunately, your quick thinking to seal the poison within your palm prevented it from reaching your heart. We will begin synthesizing an antidote immediately, but you must exercise extreme caution. If the seal breaks, or if the tissue degrades further, you may permanently lose the use of your right hand."
"Alright. I understand." Stelle gave a dismissive, casual wave of her uninjured hand, acting as if they had just told her she caught a mild cold.
While she remained entirely unbothered, the expressions of the three men surrounding her hospital bed turned incredibly ugly. A shinobi's hands were their livelihood. If Stelle suffered permanent nerve damage, it would deal a catastrophic blow to her legendary combat strength.
Hiruzen's jaw locked. Thoughts of Jiraiya's recent involvement with Kou flashed through his mind, fueling his rising temper. He forced his voice to remain steady. "Why did Uchiha Kou attack you?"
Stelle leaned back against her pillows, her tone perfectly indifferent. "I have no idea. He lunged at me out of nowhere. The entire encounter felt incredibly abrupt... almost eerie. Given his usual cowardly disposition, a frontal assassination doesn't exactly fit his profile."
"Throw him into the deepest cell of the Interrogation Department," Danzo growled, his single visible eye narrowing dangerously. "Tear his mind apart if you have to. I want to know exactly who gave him the courage to strike at the Hokage."
Danzo had despised Uchiha Kou for a long time. The man was a walking liability, constantly stirring up chaos. Did that fool really think the upper echelons of Konoha were entirely devoid of a temper? He shot a sharp, warning glare toward Hiruzen. "This incident cannot be swept under the rug. I don't care who comes crawling to his defense to plead for mercy."
For once, Hiruzen didn't offer a single word of argument. He knew exactly what Danzo was implying, but did his old friend really think him so soft that he couldn't distinguish between a minor squabble and high treason?
"Danzo is right," Hiruzen agreed grimly. "When he drew his blade in the office previously, we could write it off as a momentary lapse in judgment. But this? This was a calculated, premeditated assassination attempt on the village leader. We will show absolutely no leniency. Instruct the Interrogation Corps to use every tool at their disposal. They will pry the truth from his lips, no matter what it takes."
By the window, Uchiha Kagami quietly pulled the glass shut, cutting off the howling wind and the relentless drumming of the rain. A polite, gentle smile remained plastered across his face, but the absolute zero temperature of his voice betrayed his true fury.
"The prisoner is already secured in the lowest levels. The specialists have begun their preliminary work. Once you are settled, I will head down there to personally oversee his interrogation."
Stelle glanced up at his terrifyingly calm smile, then let out a long, dramatic sigh, sinking deeper into her mattress. "Fine, fine. We'll deal with the politics tomorrow. I'm exhausted. All of you, dismissed."
"Rest well," Hiruzen instructed softly, his anger fading into genuine concern. "Leave the village administration to the three of us for the next few days. Your only priority is to heal."
The three men filed out of the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind them. Finally, the sterile ward descended into a peaceful, empty silence.
Meanwhile, lurking in the rain-soaked foliage outside the hospital, Black Zetsu stared up at Stelle's illuminated window. He felt completely, utterly stumped.
The building was now a fortress. Squads of Anbu patrolled the perimeter, Hyuga clan members swept the area with their Byakugan, and Uzumaki sensor ninjas blanketed the grounds with their chakra nets. It was an impenetrable wall of security.
He had already ransacked Ida Mutzuki's private residence and her Hokage office eight hundred times over. He had checked every false floorboard and hidden safe. The Mangekyo Sharingan had to be on her person. But with Kou captured, how in the world was he supposed to get close to her now?
Should he try to break Uchiha Kou out of prison? The man was a highly useful pawn. Perhaps he could extract him, retreat into the shadows, and formulate a new, slower plan?
No. Absolutely not. If he abandoned this golden opportunity, he had no idea when the stars would align like this again. He had to wait and observe. Kou still had Jiraiya and a few other naive sympathizers in his corner; perhaps there was still a chance to twist the narrative and salvage the situation.
Black Zetsu cursed his own impatience. He had been too hasty. If he had just forced Kou to activate his Mangekyo Sharingan during the ambush, the pawn might have actually stood a fighting chance against Kagami's sudden interference. Taking a deep, ragged breath of the damp air, the dark entity forced his chaotic thoughts to settle, his ancient mind spinning up a fresh web of calculations.
Stelle managed to tolerate the suffocating boredom of the hospital for exactly one day before she discharged herself and marched straight back to the Hokage's office. The poison lingering in her hand was certainly a nuisance, but staring at a white ceiling all day was genuine torture. Sitting at her desk was vastly preferable.
Due to the brazen nature of the assassination attempt, the council had completely restructured Sakumo Hatake's schedule. All of his standard field missions were abruptly reassigned to other Jonin. Hiruzen and the elders had issued a strict, non-negotiable mandate: Sakumo was to remain glued to the Hokage's side as her personal bodyguard at all times.
Naturally, Stelle took full advantage of her captive audience. She immediately dumped a fresh, towering stack of theoretical homework onto his lap, gleefully ordering him to write twice as many essays as before.
Surprisingly, Sakumo didn't even complain. With the sheer volume of assassination attempts targeting the village leadership lately, he was perfectly content to sit quietly in the corner. As long as he could keep a watchful eye on Hokage-sama and ensure her safety, suffering through some tedious paperwork was a fair trade. Besides, it wasn't as if she graded him on accuracy. Writing down complete nonsense filled the pages just the same.
By mid-afternoon, an Anbu messenger materialized in the office, delivering the latest heavily classified report from the Interrogation Department.
"Hokage-sama," the masked operative reported, kneeling respectfully. "There is still zero progress regarding the prisoner, Kou. Kagami-sama personally subjected him to a deep psychological sweep using his Mangekyo Sharingan, but found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The Department Head and his specialists have used every form of mental invasion and physical torture authorized by the village, yet they have failed to extract a single piece of actionable intelligence."
Stelle reached out with her uninjured left hand, taking the thick file and flipping through the gruesome details. The report was carefully documented. It detailed the exact chemical cocktails used to break his resistance, the specific mental-type genjutsu layered into his psyche, and the invasive, agonizing methods used to forcefully dredge through his memories.
A slight twitch pulled at the corner of Stelle's eye. Good grief. It was a miracle Kou was currently under Black Zetsu's absolute control, effectively numbing his physical sensations. If he had actually been conscious to feel the pain of this interrogation, the man would have undoubtedly bitten off his own tongue and self-destructed by now. The Konoha Interrogation Department was truly a den of absolute horrors.
She tossed the grim report onto her desk and casually rested her hand over the small ninja tool pouch strapped to her thigh. A dry, highly amused sigh escaped her lips, caught somewhere between exasperation and outright laughter.
Black Zetsu, oh Black Zetsu, she thought, shaking her head at the sheer, cosmic irony of it all. I was literally trying to hand the Mangekyo over to you on a silver platter. Who told you to have such catastrophically bad luck that you'd run face-first into Kagami's patrol?
She rubbed her temples, feeling a genuine headache forming. She was trying to play the long game here, but her enemies were making it incredibly difficult to throw the match. She couldn't exactly walk up to the ancient mastermind in broad daylight, hand him the eyes, and cheerfully say: 'Here, take them! Once I fake this alias's tragic death, I'll just roll up a brand-new persona and help you kickstart the Fourth Great Ninja War!'
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