Black Zetsu

Madara Uchiha slammed the scrolls onto the stone table in the secret chamber. Utsusemi looked at the carefully falsified clan histories.

Of the thirty-seven tragedies in which brothers had killed one another, twenty-nine had survivors' testimonies bearing corrections in the same handwriting.

His Sharingan glinted coldly in the shadows. "It wasn't just the clan histories. Someone tampered with Izuna too."

He unrolled a record of an interrogation. According to it, someone had repeatedly channeled yin release Chakra into the nearly recovered Izuna to suppress his self-healing.

A trusted clan physician had administered every treatment, and the clan members involved had all suffered memory loss.

Violent Chakra erupted around Madara. "Izuna's old injury acting up on the full moon, the curse flaring up out of nowhere—all the evidence points to..."

Izuna's eyes were tightly wrapped in bandages, and bloodied teeth marks tore at his pale lips.

Utsusemi gripped Madara's trembling wrist. "So you deliberately spread the news that Izuna had recovered?"

She grasped Madara's plan at once. Madara nodded. "It's a plan to lure the snake out of its hole. This time, we'll catch the culprit for sure!"

"Of course!" Izuna nestled against Utsusemi's shoulder. "With my brother and Sister Utsusemi working together, we're sure to catch the mastermind!"

Utsusemi stroked his head affectionately. "Then we'll lift the curse on you, Izuna. You should have recovered your health long ago."

Izuna rubbed gently against her palm and smiled tenderly. He had no way to repay such selfless love. Could he offer himself to her someday?

The three mapped out their countermeasures. Taking Utsusemi's hand, Madara promised, "Whether or not we can expose the mastermind, the plan to build the village won't change."

Utsusemi clasped his wrist in return. "I believe in you. We'll succeed for sure." She put her right arm around Izuna's shoulders. "We'll put an end to this suffering once and for all!"

The Uchiha brothers nodded together. All three were certain their plan would succeed.

At dawn the next day, the Senju brothers visited Utsusemi's residence.

In the courtyard, where the morning mist had yet to disperse, Tobirama asked with feigned calm, "Has Izuna's injury finally healed?"

His gaze passed over Utsusemi's uncreased brow. The gloom that had hung over it had finally vanished without a trace today.

Hashirama Senju gripped the doorframe hard enough to leave fine cracks in it. "After waiting two hundred days and nights, we finally get to hear those words?"

He caught the fleeting curve of Utsusemi's lips and leaned toward her. "Utsusemi, are you especially happy today?"

Utsusemi closed the book she had been reading and looked straight at Tobirama's reddened ears and Hashirama's smiling eyes. "It's only bait to lure the snake out of its hole."

"But whether or not we can expose the person behind this, Madara has already agreed to an alliance to build the village." She stroked the book as she declared, "On the night of the next full moon, the names of the Senju and Uchiha will be carved into the new village's foundation stone."

Utsusemi saw the first glimmer of relief finally appear in the brothers' eyes as they looked at each other.

Two hundred days of suffering were finally about to end.

The assassination attempt erupted beneath the fiercest sunlight of noon. Izuna had pretended to take a walk to the edge of the training ground.

An assassin disguised as a Senju clansman sprang from the shadows of the trees, the tip of his Kunai gleaming with a ghostly blue poison.

Madara Uchiha's Susanoo greatsword cleaved through them, and the roar of seven Earth Style Walls had yet to fade.

The assassin's body split eerily into three afterimages, each clone carrying a real Chakra signature.

Just as everyone stood stunned, daylight suddenly broke through the clouds, and Utsusemi descended through the air in Six Paths Mode, wreathed in brilliant divine might.

Her silver hair, white as fresh snow, streamed through the Chakra storm like a cascading Milky Way. The starlight swirling in her azure Tenseigan made even the sky pale in comparison.

Her pure white robe, embroidered with black Tomoe, and the rainbow-colored sash wrapped around her stirred without wind. As her sleeves fluttered, they revealed the yin-yang orb ornaments floating at her waist.

At the raised tip of her Six Paths Staff gathered the energy of a collapsing star. Her sacred pressure forced every plant within a hundred meters to bow low, while the gravel on the training ground defied gravity and floated.

The nine Truth-Seeking Orbs behind her formed a sun wheel suspended in the air. Blazing white light poured down like a sword of judgment, ionizing the air into writhing serpents of purple lightning.

All the clones dissolved instantly, exposing the assassin's true body. The moment Chakra chains pierced it, everyone could clearly see a tar-like substance writhing madly beneath the assassin's skin.

Like living things, the chains wove a net of light inside the possessed person's body, piercing precisely through every patch of writhing black matter.

The pupils of the Senju brothers, who had just reached the scene, shook violently. The clatter of the Flying Thunder God Kunai falling from Tobirama's hand rang unusually clear in the frozen air.

His usually calm voice trembled in a rare display. "This is... Six Paths Mode?"

Hashirama Senju gripped his younger brother's shoulder. Even his Wood Release Cells trembled, forced into resonance by the Flower Release of Six Paths Mode. "Utsusemi's level of power has now completely surpassed our understanding."

Madara Uchiha's Sharingan caught the paths of the flowing energy. "This Six Paths Mode is more complete than it was in the first battle."

"Got you." Her Tenseigan shimmered with flowing light as the ends of the chains pulled half a distorted humanoid figure from the enemy's spine.

Black Zetsu's remaining half let out a high-pitched shriek, its sound waves spreading like tangible black ripples.

The glass around the training ground shattered one pane after another, but the sound waves vanished like bubbles when they touched the golden light surrounding her.

The black substance bound by the chains boiled like tar. Suppressed by the Truth-Seeking Orbs, it eerily collapsed in on itself until only half a twisted body remained, struggling in the chains.

Utsusemi's Tenseigan abruptly contracted. That mass of matter radiating an ominous aura was only half of him!

"Only half of him..."