Chapter 224: Black Zetsu Has Been Contaminated
While Stelle's daily life was a chaotic cocktail of suffering and joy, things were going absolutely terribly for Black Zetsu.
At this exact moment, the ancient mastermind was running for his life, being ruthlessly hunted down and battered by Mie.
Ordinary ninjutsu might as well have been a gentle breeze against his unique physiology, but Mie didn't bother with standard elemental attacks. She was a terrifying prodigy in Fuinjutsu. She hurled high-level sealing techniques at him one after another, spamming the complex formulas as if her chakra reserves were completely bottomless.
Desperate to avoid being captured and subjected to her twisted brand of discipline, he made a tactical retreat. He unceremoniously detached himself from the White Zetsu clone he usually used as a host. Shedding his iconic pitcher-plant silhouette, Black Zetsu liquefied his body into a viscous puddle of dark sludge. He slithered deep into the damp soil, leaving only the upper half of his yellow, glowing eyes exposed to monitor the surface.
As long as he stayed submerged, he could sink out of range the second Mie formed a hand seal.
"How many times do I have to spell this out for you?!" Black Zetsu shrieked from the dirt, his raspy voice echoing through the clearing. "Nagato and the others getting hurt has absolutely nothing to do with me! It was their own incompetence! My role is strictly intelligence gathering, not playing wet nurse to a bunch of brats!"
"Oh, really?" Mie scoffed, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "Whenever I take them on missions, they perform flawlessly. But the moment they go on a single assignment with you, they drag themselves back covered in blood! Nagato was practically half-dead and had to be carried! And you expect me to believe you didn't pull any strings?"
She stomped her foot against the grass. The sheer physical force of the impact shattered the earth, blasting a massive crater into the ground and sending shockwaves tearing through the soil. Forced out of his hiding spot, Black Zetsu scrambled frantically across the dirt, fleeing for his life once again.
This time, he dove much deeper, burrowing far below the bedrock where Mie's explosive temper couldn't reach him.
Just as he thought he was safe, a familiar, swirling white face popped out of the subterranean rock right next to him. It was Tobi.
"Hey, Black Zetsu!" Tobi chirped helpfully. "If you finally tell me what the urge to poop feels like, I'll go up there and explain everything to Mie for you! It really wasn't your fault this time, right?"
Black Zetsu's glowing yellow eyes twitched. If he had hands right now, he would have strangled the swirl-faced idiot.
"Why didn't you explain that before she started trying to seal me into a jar?!" he hissed, his inky form bubbling with sheer rage. "You just sat there and watched her hunt me down!"
"Well, she was moving really fast! I didn't even have time to open my mouth before she chased after us," Tobi reasoned, tilting his head. "So... about that pooping thing. Are you going to tell me?"
"Shut up!"
Black Zetsu genuinely felt his nonexistent blood pressure rising. These White Zetsu clones were unfathomably stupid. Countless times, his carefully laid, centuries-old schemes had been nearly derailed because these idiots bungled the simplest instructions. It was agonizing to watch.
Their only redeeming quality was their absolute, unquestioning obedience. They followed his orders blindly and served as excellent, disposable spies to keep an eye on the unpredictable anomaly that was Mie.
"Aw, come on, why won't you just tell me?" Tobi whined, completely oblivious to the ancient entity's murderous aura. "If you just explain it, I promise I won't ask ever again. I'll totally shut up!"
The clone was utterly convinced that Black Zetsu, being the 'smartest' of their kind, held the sacred knowledge of human bowel movements.
"I already told you, I don't know! I don't know what it feels like!" Black Zetsu roared.
"But Mie said we're exactly the same species!" Tobi countered, swimming through the dirt to circle around Black Zetsu like an annoying shark. "She said you're the absolute smartest out of all of us and that you know everything! How could a genius like you not know about pooping?"
He chattered incessantly, his voice echoing in the cramped underground space.
Black Zetsu felt a phantom migraine throbbing behind his eyes. He didn't feel flattered by the praise in the slightest. Instead, a deep sense of humiliation washed over him at the realization that Mie actually lumped him into the same biological category as these brain-dead mutations.
Seriously, what kind of sane creature obsesses over the urge to defecate every single day?!
Unable to tolerate another second of Tobi's harassment, Black Zetsu phased back up to the surface.
Mie was waiting for him. She stood beneath the sprawling canopy of a massive oak tree, her arms crossed severely over her chest. The moment she spotted his dark form breaching the grass, her fingers blurred into a hand seal. A glowing barrage of Fuinjutsu script immediately shot through the air toward him.
"Hold it!" Black Zetsu snapped irritably, dodging the glowing characters. "White Zetsu was right there with us! Ask him! And if you don't believe him, go interrogate your three precious students yourself! They aren't toddlers anymore; they're grown ninjas. Don't they have mouths to speak for themselves? Why do you automatically insist I'm the one pulling the strings behind the scenes?!"
Mie paused. Studying his exasperated, thoroughly miserable expression, she realized he genuinely didn't look like a mastermind who had just orchestrated a betrayal. With a quiet huff, she released her hand seal, letting the lethal chakra dissipate into the wind.
"I've made my terms perfectly clear," Mie warned, her tone dropping to a deadly chill. "Until we locate the Rinnegan and gather all nine Tailed Beasts, you do not interfere with my business, and I won't pry into yours. But those three are strictly off-limits. You are not to touch them. Do you understand?"
"I know, I know!" Black Zetsu spat back, his voice dripping with dramatic resentment. "We've been partners for so many years, yet I'm not even as important to you as three random brats you picked up off the street! Fine! In the future, when you're completely broke, don't come crying to me for funds! Go beg your precious disciples for money, you absolute jerk!"
He roared the last part in sheer frustration before sinking back into the earth.
Mie blinked, her foot catching on a tree root as she nearly stumbled over.
She stared at the empty patch of dirt, utterly bewildered. After spending so much time around her, Black Zetsu's personality was mutating into something incredibly bizarre. Exactly which part of his ancient, manipulative brain had she accidentally contaminated?
Lately, these weird, melodramatic outbursts kept slipping out of his mouth. It constantly gave her the uncomfortable illusion that she was some sort of callous heartbreaker stringing along a bitter ex.
A violent shudder ran down Mie's spine. She rubbed her arms to dispel the sudden goosebumps, shot a look of deep disgust at the ground, and turned on her heel to head back to the base.
Inside the dimly lit hideout, the atmosphere was heavy. Konan sat by the edge of a cot, carefully wrapping fresh bandages around Yahiko's bruised and lacerated torso. Across the room, Nagato lay motionless on a separate bed, trapped in a deep, feverish coma.
Watching them from the doorway, Mie couldn't help but sigh. Time truly flew. Those three starving, gaunt orphans she had taken in from the rain-soaked gutters had grown up so fast. Under her strict tutelage, they had shed their fragility, blossoming into highly capable ninjas who could hold their own in this brutal world.
Yahiko, in particular, burned with a fierce ambition. Two years ago, he had started actively operating across the war-torn Land of Rain. With his natural charisma, he gradually connected with rogue shinobi and disillusioned civilians who shared his radical ideals. They all wanted to change the miserable, weeping state of their country. Slowly but surely, a dedicated following had gathered around the trio, forming a grassroots organization dedicated to sheltering refugees and feeding the endless tide of homeless orphans.
Because he had studied the grand blueprints for ninja world peace—and knew the tragic history of the senior who had sacrificed everything for it—Yahiko's ideological framework was far more mature and grounded than it would have been otherwise.
In his eyes, attempting to force peace upon the entire Ninja World was a fool's errand if they couldn't even save their own home. To change the world, they first had to change the Land of Rain. They needed to carve out a sanctuary where their people could finally live stable, dignified lives without the constant fear of collateral damage. If they couldn't even heal one tiny, broken country, what right did they have to preach about saving the globe?
Following Mie's strategic guidance, the three had divided their labor efficiently. They led their new comrades to the Underground Exchange, taking on high-risk, high-reward bounties to fund their rapidly expanding charity operations. It was a solid, practical system.
However, this latest excursion had gone horribly wrong. All three of her elite students had returned battered and bleeding.
"Yahiko, tell me exactly what happened out there," Mie demanded softly. She stepped up to Nagato's bedside, her hands glowing with medical chakra as she began to inspect the redhead's severe internal injuries.
Yahiko flinched slightly as Konan tightened a bandage, his face pale. "We took a bounty mission from the Exchange. The payout was unusually high. Everything was going perfectly according to plan at first. We cornered the target, but while he was fleeing, he panicked. He crashed into a civilian home and took a little kid hostage."
He swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to the floor. "Master... you know how Nagato is. His parents were killed as collateral damage in a ninja skirmish. Seeing that kid crying with a kunai to his throat... Nagato couldn't handle it. He unilaterally gave up on the mission and let the target escape to save the child. But... the target didn't just run away. He came back that very night with a squad of accomplices and ambushed our camp. We were caught completely off guard, and..."
Mie sighed inwardly. So, their camp location had been compromised, and they had suffered a brutal counter-attack. To put it bluntly, it was a fatal lack of battlefield experience. If they had chosen to let a hostile target go, standard protocol dictated that they immediately evacuate the area and relocate. Lingering in the same spot was practically begging for retaliation.
But then she paused, her brow furrowing. "No... that doesn't make sense. The three of you aren't that careless. I trained you better than that. How could you possibly make such a rookie mistake?"
Yahiko shifted uncomfortably. He shot a guilty glance toward the unconscious Nagato before bowing his head deeply. Even though he was now the respected leader of a growing rebel faction, he still acted like a reprimanded child whenever he stood before Mie.
"It was entirely my error in judgment, Master," Yahiko said, his voice thick with shame. "I take full responsibility. Please punish me."
Mie rolled her eyes. It was such a trivial cover-up, yet they were stubbornly trying to shield each other. With just a fraction of a second's thought, she easily deduced the truth. The mistake definitely had something to do with Nagato's emotional state after the hostage situation. But since the redhead was currently unconscious and couldn't defend himself, Yahiko and Konan didn't know how to explain the lapse in judgment without throwing their brother under the bus.
"Fine. Then your punishment is double training tomorrow, and you're on cooking duty for the entire base," Mie declared, waving her hand dismissively to signal that the interrogation was over. She turned her full attention back to Nagato, channeling a steady stream of soothing chakra into his battered meridians.
As she worked, her thoughts drifted over her three eccentric disciples. Among them, Yahiko was undeniably the visionary—a charismatic dreamer who genuinely believed he could reshape the world and worked himself to the bone to achieve it. Konan, on the other hand, was essentially Yahiko's most fiercely loyal supporter. She followed his lead without hesitation, and the two of them spent half the day radiating a sickeningly sweet, lovey-dovey aura that gave Mie a toothache.
Nagato was the stark contrast to their bright dynamic. He was perpetually silent, deeply introverted, and a young man of painfully few words. Half the time, absolutely no one had a clue what was going on inside his head.
When she first took him in, his thick, straight red bangs had completely obscured both of his eyes. Eventually, Mie had ordered Konan and Yahiko to pin him down and forcibly trim his hair so he could actually see. Yet, despite their best efforts, he had stubbornly grown it out again, adopting a long, side-swept fringe that draped heavily over his face.
Perhaps because she had ruthlessly drilled into him that obscured vision would get him killed in combat, Nagato made sure to pin his hair back and reveal his eyes during actual missions. But the moment he returned to the safety of the base, he would immediately lower his head, letting that crimson curtain fall right back over his face like a security blanket.
With him constantly peering out from behind that veil of hair, it was impossible to tell what he was actually looking at. His hidden gaze would dart around the room, silently absorbing every detail, yet he rarely offered a single word of input.
Honestly, sometimes Mie felt that if she just handed him a sniper rifle and told him to squat in a bush, he would become the undisputed king of the battlefield. All he would need to do is whisper, "Observing from the shadows," and his edgy persona would be absolutely complete.
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