Chapter 141: That Was His Light
A moment later, the oppressive, agonizing pulse of the Cursed Seal finally ceased. Black Zetsu loomed over the scene, his voice dripping with absolute, chilling authority.
"Kill the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki. Immediately."
Ye gasped for air, her chest heaving violently. The brutal punishment from the Cursed Seal had drained every ounce of her strength, leaving her collapsed on the cold floor like a broken doll. Trembling, she dragged her battered body forward, wrapping her arms fiercely around Blue B's thigh in a desperate, protective embrace.
"No..." she rasped, her voice cracking. "Lord Black Zetsu, please... spare him. I'll find my eyes. I swear it! I'm still a rare Wood Release user. I can be so useful to you. Take me with you, use me however you want—just let him live, please!"
Black Zetsu stared down at her pathetic display. She really has been brainwashed thoroughly, he mused, a dark satisfaction swirling within his shadowy form. I must keep her under strict surveillance once we return to the hideout, at least until she awakens the Rinnegan.
Without a shred of mercy, he flared his chakra, activating the Cursed Seal once again. If a tool refused to obey, it simply required harsher discipline.
"Blue B is... he's too important," Ye whimpered, convulsing as the seal burned her flesh. "I can't kill him... I can't..."
At the sound of her agonizing cries, Blue B—who had previously fallen into a catatonic stupor—suddenly twitched. His muscles locked. Though his mind was heavily suppressed by the enemy's genjutsu, his perception of the outside world had not been entirely severed. Ye's desperate, tear-soaked screams pierced through the mental fog, echoing relentlessly in his mind. Alongside her cries came that cold, sinister voice, ruthlessly commanding her to end his life.
A deep, volcanic fury ignited within Blue B's chest.
Who is doing this? his mind roared against the psychic chains. Why are they being so cruel to her?
To him, she was the gentle, well-behaved Ye. The adorable, innocent girl who had looked at him without an ounce of fear.
That was his light.
To the rest of Kumogakure, he was the hero who had rescued a helpless girl from the wilderness and brought her safely into the village. But Blue B knew the truth. It was Ye who had saved him.
Years ago, he had willingly volunteered to become the Jinchuriki, sacrificing his own humanity to protect his home. His reward? Fear. Disgust. The villagers looked at him not as a savior, but as a ticking time bomb. They whispered behind his back, scurrying away as if merely standing in his shadow would cause the Eight-Tails to burst forth and tear them limb from limb.
On countless sleepless nights, Blue B had sat alone on the highest cliffs of Kumo, staring at the distant moon, drowning in an ocean of unmatched, suffocating loneliness.
Then, he met Ye.
She didn't flinch when he approached. She didn't look at his stomach with hidden terror. Instead, she clung to him, depending on him completely, her eyes filled with nothing but pure, unadulterated trust. When he was with Ye, the heavy burden of the beast faded away. He felt like his old self again—the man he was before the beast was sealed inside him.
He hadn't saved her life. She had saved his soul. She was the only person in this wretched world who made him feel like a living, breathing human being rather than a caged monster.
So... stop torturing her!
Fueled by raw, unyielding rage, Blue B's consciousness violently surged forward, slamming into the psychic barrier controlling his mind. He gritted his teeth, his physical body trembling as he desperately channeled his thoughts inward, screaming a message to the massive beast sealed within his gut. He battered against the genjutsu with everything he had.
His massive frame began to sway, muscles bulging as he fought the invisible chains. The air around him grew heavy, practically humming with the threat of a violent awakening. He was on the absolute brink of breaking free.
Standing nearby, Jia sharply inhaled a breath of cold air, his hands glowing with the strain of maintaining the technique. "Lord Black Zetsu! If you keep playing around with her, I won't be able to hold him down much longer!"
Black Zetsu narrowed his yellow eyes, genuinely irritated by the girl's stubbornness. Initially, he had only intended to teach her a harsh lesson. Had she simply raised her weapon and shown a willingness to obey, he would have stopped her before she dealt the fatal blow. After all, Konoha was currently the undisputed dominant force in the Ninja World. Allowing the other Great Villages to maintain their military strength—like keeping their Jinchuriki alive—was highly beneficial to his grand, centuries-long scheme.
But now? Now her defiance had genuinely angered him. He wanted her to cross that line. If he didn't carve a deep, unforgettable lesson into her very soul right now, there was no guarantee this brainwashed pawn would serve him wholeheartedly in the future.
"If you refuse to kill him," Black Zetsu hissed, his voice cold and final, "then you shall die in his place."
Ye lay sprawled on the stone floor. Dark streaks of blood from the Cursed Seal's agonizing torture painted her chin and dripped from her nose. Yet, upon hearing Black Zetsu's cruel ultimatum, her violent trembling abruptly ceased.
Slowly, her fingers curled around the hilt of a fallen kunai. Drawing on the very last dregs of her strength, she pushed herself off the ground. Her legs wobbled, but she managed to stand, dragging her feet until she stood directly in front of the paralyzed Blue B. Reaching out, she gently, tenderly grasped his massive, calloused hand.
"Brother Blue B..." she whispered, tears carving clean tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."
A smug sense of victory washed over Black Zetsu. He assumed she was finally about to strike the Jinchuriki.
But in a flash of desperate motion, Ye reversed her grip on the kunai and viciously slashed the blackened blade straight toward her own throat.
She moved with terrifying speed. In a fraction of a second, the razor-sharp edge pressed directly against her carotid artery.
The sheer suddenness of the act sent a jolt of shock through both Black Zetsu and Jia.
Wait, Jia thought, his eyes widening in panic. The script is wrong!
Just as the steel was about to bite into her flesh and end her life, the air violently warped.
FWOOSH!
Pure, suffocating black flames suddenly erupted from her very pores. A terrifying aura of absolute destruction instantly flooded the room, heavy enough to crush bone.
Jia's eyes nearly popped out of his skull. Holy crap, he screamed internally. Alias number two actually switched accounts on her own!
The weeping, pathetic girl was gone. In her place stood a figure whose entire temperament had undergone a monstrous shift. The facial features shifted, morphing until they perfectly mirrored the terrifying visage of Mie, wreathed entirely in an inferno of black fire.
Catching sight of that hauntingly familiar face, Black Zetsu physically recoiled. He stumbled backward, his shadowy form slipping so badly he nearly tumbled backward out the open window.
"You... you're... Mie?!"
Black Zetsu's mind reeled in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. His strongest ally from that bygone era—the monstrous woman who had once fought two legendary shinobi to a standstill—was actually still alive?
On one hand, this was a miraculous revelation. But a glaring problem immediately presented itself: if Mie was back, what happened to Ye? Had the girl simply ceased to exist? And more —was the precious Wood Release constitution still intact?
Mie casually flicked her wrist, extinguishing the black flames dancing across her palm. She tilted her chin up, shooting Black Zetsu a look of supreme, arrogant disdain. One perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched upward.
"Long time no see, Black Zetsu," she drawled, her voice dripping with condescension. "I see you're still as pathetic as ever. Not a single ounce of progress in all these years."
Black Zetsu felt a vein throb in his metaphorical forehead. If you're so damn capable, he thought bitterly, then why couldn't you avoid getting beaten to a pulp by the combined might of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara?!
The old, infuriating dynamic instantly rushed back to him—the bitter memory of constantly doing all the dirty work and gathering resources, only to be effortlessly looked down upon by this arrogant woman.
"You... you didn't die?" Black Zetsu managed to ask, forcing his voice to remain steady.
The guards stationed outside the building had long been trapped in a deep genjutsu, but the explosive surge of black flames and the sheer density of Mie's chakra had acted like a beacon in the night. There was no way to hide such a massive commotion. Already, several powerful, hostile chakra signatures were rapidly converging on their location.
"I am the chosen successor of Lord Sojin," Mie scoffed, her tone implying he had asked the stupidest question imaginable. "How could I possibly perish in a mere skirmish?"
She cast a brief, dismissive glance toward Blue B, who was still violently thrashing against the mental restraints of the Sharingan. Turning back to Black Zetsu, she casually waved her hand, naturally slipping right back into the role of giving him orders.
"That foolish little girl took the initiative to sacrifice her own soul to let me out. Her final, pathetic condition was to spare Blue B's life. Let's go, Black Zetsu. He's just the Eight-Tails. We have bigger things to worry about."
Black Zetsu certainly had no desire to expose his presence to Kumogakure's elite forces. Though his mind was practically overflowing with unanswered questions, a millennium of ingrained subservience kicked in. His body reflexively moved forward, extending his shadowy mass to envelop both Mie and Jia before smoothly sinking into the solid stone floor.
As they traveled rapidly through the earth, Black Zetsu couldn't stop sizing Mie up. Ye and Mie had shared a passing resemblance, yes, but it was merely superficial. The woman traveling beside him now was a flawless, albeit slightly younger, replica of the terrifying Mie from the past.
The most baffling part was the instantaneous transition. The very second Mie manifested, Ye was simply... gone. It was as if her existence had been completely erased from reality.
What kind of jutsu was this? What was the underlying principle? Even after lurking in the shadows for over a thousand years, Black Zetsu couldn't begin to comprehend the mechanics of what he had just witnessed.
"What exactly is your situation?" Black Zetsu finally demanded, unable to hold back his curiosity. "Where is Ye?"
"She's dead," Mie stated flatly, a cruel smirk playing on her lips. "Completely and utterly devoured by me."
Without missing a beat, Mie began to effortlessly troll—ahem, explain the situation to Black Zetsu.
"It's all thanks to you sabotaging that little experiment in the laboratory back then," she lied smoothly, her tone dripping with dark amusement. "If you hadn't intervened, not only would my physical body have been consumed, but my very soul and consciousness would have been permanently assimilated into Ye's. For all these years, I've been forced into dormancy, hiding deep within that wretched girl's body just to slowly recover my strength."
She let out a dry, mocking chuckle. "Honestly, it should have taken decades longer. But the idiot took the initiative to sacrifice her own life force just now, providing me with the exact catalyst I needed to reclaim a portion of my original power."
So that little brat just died, just like that?
Black Zetsu mentally reeled. The trajectory of events had completely derailed from his carefully laid plans. His original objective had been to drag a brainwashed Ye back to their base. Now, the girl was dead and gone.
"And what about her Wood Release constitution?" he pressed, a hint of anxiety bleeding into his raspy voice.
Mie rolled her eyes. "Naturally, I inherited it upon devouring her."
A massive wave of relief washed over the shadowy manipulator. Good. Excellent. As long as the Wood Release constitution remains intact, nothing is lost.
If anything, this was a massive upgrade. Mie had always been fiercely active about initiating the Infinite Tsukuyomi. With her back in the picture, she would undoubtedly become his most capable and ruthless pawn in the grand scheme to resurrect his mother.
So what if that anomaly, Ida Mutzuki, was powerful? Could she possibly defeat the combined, god-like forces of Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama? Highly unlikely. But Mie? Mie was a monster who had historically proven she could hold her own against both of those legends simultaneously.
Therefore, Ye's sudden sacrifice was more than worth it. She was just a disposable experimental subject anyway. Yes, that was it. A perfectly acceptable trade.
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +50,000]
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +50,000]
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