Chapter 301: An Anxious Anko, A Transforming Kabuto
"Finally... you're finally back!"
"Do you have even the slightest inkling of how I've survived this past month and a half?"
"I've been waking up earlier than a rooster and going to sleep later than a dog! In the dead of night, I'd get so paranoid about petty thieves disrupting Konoha's public order that I'd drag myself out of bed just to run another lap around the village."
"A month and a half... In just a month and a half, I've literally lost over twenty pounds!"
"Do you realize how utterly terrifying it is for a grown adult to drop over twenty pounds in a single month?!"
In front of Uchiha Izumi's front door, Mitarashi Anko was leaning her entire body weight against the frame, blocking the entrance. Every single syllable that spilled from her lips was steeped in the raw, agonizing blood and tears of her exhausting ordeal over the past several weeks.
There were moments during this stretch where she genuinely contemplated whether she should just let the world burn. Truly, she was so, so tired!
But what else could she have done?
The one person she wanted to slaughter more than anyone else, Orochimaru, had already been definitively purged by Uchiha Ikeizumi. But with Ikeizumi subsequently leaving Konoha for his deployment across the sea, she couldn't exactly leave the systemic preservation of Absolute Justice solely in the hands of two hyperactive academy brats like Sasuke and Naruto, could she?
As for the rest of the Uchiha clan members, they were undeniably diligent and worked around the clock, but the Uchiha lacked interpersonal communication skills! They couldn't talk to regular civilians without sounding like an interrogation!
Thus, Anko had spent the last month and a half exactly as she described...waking up before the roosters and sleeping after the dogs. Her primary driving terror was that the absolute moment Uchiha Ikeizumi set foot back in the village, he would look around and conclude that the influence of Absolute Justice had begun to decay under her watch.
"Um, Senior Anko... would you mind letting go of the door first?"
Izumi looked at Anko, who had visibly leaned down by a massive margin, an embarrassed, apologetic smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
She truly hadn't anticipated that Anko would endure such a punishing schedule in their absence. However, they had literally just crossed back into Konoha, and Izumi was desperate to unpack and get some proper rest...
"I'm not letting go!"
Anko's stance was entirely unyielding. She had officially hit her absolute limit with this cursed sense of civic responsibility.
Today, even if Izumi argued until the sky fell down, Izumi was going to have to shoulder the burden and maintain justice herself!
As for her, Mitarashi Anko?
She was going to take a brutally long hot bath, she was going to gorge herself on sweet dango, and she was going to aggressively regain every single ounce of flesh she had lost over the past month and a half!
"Unless you commit right now to taking over the patrol route, I am absolutely not moving from this spot!"
Anko's tone remained fiercely stubborn, though the gaze she leveled at Izumi was beginning to border on a desperate plea.
As for why she didn't take this grievance directly to Uchiha Ikeizumi?
She didn't dare to...
Anko couldn't entirely explain the psychological block, but she harbored a deep-seated dread when it came to facing Ikeizumi. Perhaps it was a lingering trauma from witnessing the ruthless efficiency of his methods back in the capital of the Land of Fire, or perhaps it was a subconscious association stemming from his execution of her former master, Orochimaru. Either way, she actively avoided confronting him.
Furthermore, demanding that a powerhouse like Uchiha Ikeizumi handle a basic neighborhood watch patrol? Even if she had eaten a tiger's heart and a leopard's gall, she wouldn't possess a fraction of the audacity required to suggest it!
"I'll handle the patrol."
A calm voice cut through the air as Uchiha Ikeizumi stepped out from the adjacent courtyard, taking in the sight of the two kunoichi locked in a stubborn deadlock at Izumi's door.
Kojirō's superficial injuries had already been thoroughly managed by Katsuyu's healing, and after confirming that his recent biology shift merely granted him the baseline capacity to manifest black receivers alongside a deeper awakening of his Rinnegan's latent power, Ikeizumi didn't feel the need to remain cooped up in isolation.
"Lord Ikeizumi..."
Catching sight of Ikeizumi's sudden appearance, Anko quickly glanced between him and the half-hidden Izumi behind the door, offering a thoroughly flustered and embarrassed greeting.
While Uchiha Ikeizumi was integrating back into the daily logistics of Konoha, Black Zetsu was actively operating across the shadowy margins of the ninja world.
As the duration of the Flames of Judgment burning against his soul prolonged, Black Zetsu had gradually begun to build up a warped tolerance to the agonizing, soul-deep pain. A conceptual metric like "sin" was ultimately incapable of shattering the absolute, ancient resolve of history's most devoted son determined to liberate his mother.
However, throughout this painful stretch, Black Zetsu had simultaneously come to a frustrating realization: Obito was a piece of rotten sludge that simply couldn't be propped up onto a wall!
Not only was Obito proving to be unreliable, but the Akatsuki organization as a whole was steadily slipping away from their calculated manipulation. This structural breakdown forced Black Zetsu to aggressively fast-track his operational contingency plan.
"Have you successfully mapped out the coordinates of Orochimaru's hidden research laboratories?" Black Zetsu demanded, his gaze locking onto the White Zetsu clone standing before him.
Operating entirely behind Obito's back and leaving him completely in the dark, Black Zetsu had deployed a massive, sweeping network of White Zetsu strains, effectively combing through the mountains and scouring the seas to locate Orochimaru's network.
What Black Zetsu coveted wasn't the late Sannin's standard bio-data; he was hunting exclusively for any research scrolls regarding the Impure World Reincarnation (Edo Tensei).
"We have successfully pinpointed Orochimaru's primary, high-priority stronghold located within the borders of the Land of Rice Fields," the White Zetsu reported, recounting the analytical data accumulated over the past weeks.
"However, we failed to recover any operational files regarding the Impure World Reincarnation. It is highly probable that Orochimaru stored the data mechanics of that specific kinjutsu in a completely separate, classified location."
White Zetsu relayed the results of their exhaustive search. In order to successfully infiltrate Orochimaru's traps and security barriers, the White Zetsu network had sustained significant structural losses. After all, the rogue Sannin had spent his entire life collecting unique orphans with volatile bloodlines.
From the Shikotsumyaku of the Kaguya line, to the Crystal Release, to anomalies capable of passively absorbing natural energy...
The most absurd variable was that every single one of these test subjects maintained a fierce, fanatical loyalty toward Orochimaru. It truly illustrated how severely starved for validation the outcasts of the ninja world were, given that a degenerate viper of that caliber could be worshipped like a savior.
"What about Kabuto?"
"I recall that Yakushi Kabuto was the deep-cover spy Orochimaru planted directly at Sasori's flank. He spent years operating as Orochimaru's primary laboratory assistant."
"If there is a single living entity who understands the exact ledger of Orochimaru's inheritance and hidden vaults, that brat Kabuto is the most logical candidate!"
Black Zetsu pressed, shifting the interrogation toward Kabuto's precise whereabouts. Every asset Orochimaru collected had a specific utility, but Kabuto was the singular entity who had successfully elevated himself to the status of a trusted confidant and lead researcher, making him Black Zetsu's highest priority target.
"We couldn't find him."
"Or rather, he is entirely untraceable."
White Zetsu shook its head in sheer helplessness. It had naturally committed significant surveillance assets toward tracking the rogue medical ninja, but regardless of how thoroughly they mapped the sensory currents, Yakushi Kabuto appeared to have vanished off the face of the ninja world entirely.
"Untraceable?"
Black Zetsu frowned, unable to comprehend the variable. Given White Zetsu's absolute monopoly over intelligence gathering and environmental scouting, how could a prominent human shinobi simply evaporate from their net?
He was well aware that the White Zetsu clones lacked the capacity for deception; otherwise, he would have suspected the creature was actively playing him for a fool.
"No, wait... hold on..."
"I think I've deduced exactly where Kabuto is hiding!"
Black Zetsu fell into a brief, calculated silence as his ancient mind systematically processed the operational data, gradually forming a clear, logical deduction.
Perhaps, across the entire geography of the ninja world, he wasn't the only ancient entity prioritizing Kabuto's unique talent. And looking at assets inextricably linked to Orochimaru's research who possessed that specific tier of containment capability... the only matching variable was the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave, whose ancestral nesting grounds had been directly uprooted by Uchiha Ikeizumi.
"The primeval ninja beasts who wield the authority of prophecy and manipulate natural energy..."
"Did the White Snake Sage glimpse a specific thread of the future through her prophetic sight, prompting her to secure and extract Kabuto ahead of schedule?"
The more Black Zetsu evaluated the hypothesis, the higher his confidence grew regarding the success of his secondary contingency. Setting aside whether Orochimaru had fully perfected the internal mechanics of the Impure World Reincarnation before his demise, the mere reality that the White Snake Sage valued Kabuto so intensely implied that the young man possessed an entirely exceptional tier of talent.
In truth, deep within the subterranean recesses of the earth, Yakushi Kabuto had arrived at the exact same conclusion regarding his own biology: he possessed an entirely unique, reality-warping talent.
When he was initially subjected to forced confinement by the White Snake Sage and driven under immense duress to master the Ryūchi Cave Sage Mode, Kabuto had harbored a significant amount of underlying resistance. After all, Sage Mode was a volatile authority; a single miscalculation in the balancing of natural energy would result in immediate, horrific death.
Yet, as Kabuto gradually acclimated to the unique, toxic currents of Ryūchi Cave's natural energy, he made a staggering discovery...his biology appeared to possess an innate, flawless synchronization with the snake-based Sage Mode.