Black Judgment

Crack!

Black Zetsu stared at the hand pulled from his left chest, and his whole body went numb!

Huh...?

He stammered, "W-what's going on, Chen? Th-this isn't what you said would happen!"

Chen said carelessly, "What's different about it~?"

Black Zetsu's eyes twitched backward, taking in Madara's face carved with cold mockery.

"D-didn't you say Madara had been controlled by your Kotoamatsukami? Why did he suddenly reach into me from behind?!"

Standing nearby, Chen picked up Kaguya's hand. Her slender, parted fingers combed through his hair like a rake.

Not only were his actions bizarre, but what he said sounded utterly incoherent to Black Zetsu.

"Huh? How strange~. Could it be that your little black backside held some mysterious allure~, making Madara unable to resist taking a closer look~? Is this the distortion of human nature or the decay of morality~?!"

"Forget distortion or decay! Hurry up and make Madara pull his hand out! I can't move!!!"

Crack! The moment Black Zetsu finished speaking, another hand pierced through his right chest.

Two hands were neatly arranged in front of him, while two people stood neatly behind him.

The owner of the latter hand, Obito, stood beside Madara, the two maintaining identical poses.

With great difficulty, Black Zetsu dragged his gaze away from Obito's face, wrinkled with blazing sarcasm.

When he turned back, he saw Chen smiling as well. Yet no matter how he looked at it, that smile carried a disturbingly twisted air.

Black Zetsu finally understood.

"Y-you... you were playing me?"

Madara's coldly mocking voice sounded behind him. "Black Zetsu, at the moment you were most pleased with yourself and most relaxed, how did it feel to have your hopes suddenly shattered?"

Obito's scorching sarcasm followed. "You seem to enjoy being clever and treating everyone else as idiots. But now, without a doubt, you are the stupidest one here."

"Hah, hahahahahahaha!" Black Zetsu laughed like a madman. As he laughed, his expression turned savage. "Uchiha Chen, y-you people are despicable! You are truly shameless and despicable!"

"Black Zetsu, when it comes to the word 'despicable,' you could be a teacher to heaven itself!"

"You trampled over other people's lives and dignity without restraint. Falling into our hands today is your retribution!"

Bzzzt, bzzzt. Behind him, the two men who had once attained the Six Paths began to exert themselves according to that familiar old sensation. Using Black Zetsu's Yin-Yang Release body as material, each refined a Truth-Seeking Orb in their free palm! (Obito had proven this was possible in the original work.)

Whoosh! The Truth-Seeking Orb in Madara's hand transformed into a crescent-shaped staff.

Whoosh! The Truth-Seeking Orb in Obito's hand transformed into a complete circular Sun Staff adorned with rings.

The heads of these two styles of staffs respectively symbolized the inclinations of yin and yang.

Looking at Hagoromo Otsutsuki's double-headed staff, it represented the ultimate harmony of yin and yang. That was the true, complete Six Paths.

Having been drained to create the two Truth-Seeking Orb staffs, Black Zetsu was utterly spent. He slipped weakly off their arms and collapsed onto the ground in a puddle.

Clang! Clang! Madara and Obito stood with their staffs planted on the ground, their gazes at Chen conveying the same meaning.

We've already vented our anger. The right to deal with him is yours now.

Chen's smile faded.

He and Black Zetsu had never truly held any grudge against each other, and personally, he had no particular reason to make things difficult for him.

His earlier stance had merely been to support his brothers. Nothing more.

By now, Black Zetsu knew his chances of survival were slim. He gathered his remaining body and formed a round, pancake-like face, two golden dots for eyes staring pleadingly at Chen.

Clinging humbly to his last shred of hope, he questioned Chen from the depths of his soul.

"Chen! You only can't stand me and want to use me to help the two behind you vent their anger! But when you said you wanted to revive Mother, that wasn't a lie, was it?! Was it?!"

"I absolutely refuse to believe it! You wouldn't come all the way here and go through so much trouble to destroy the Chibaku Tensei just for someone as insignificant as me!"

How should he put it? Whether Chen had ever considered such a thing or not, Black Zetsu was destined not to hear the answer he wanted here.

"Of course we didn't come here just for you, because... we came here to kill Kaguya once and for all."

"What?! No! I'm begging you! Don't do this! I'm willing to bear Mother's past sins alone! Humiliate me, torture me, even kill me if you want! But please, spare Mother! She has already lost her strength and is trapped inside the Sealing Stone, unable to do anything! Why must you exterminate her completely?!"

The face formed from that black puddle bulged outward, repeatedly pressing its forehead to the ground before Chen's shoes as though begging in kowtow.

Chen put down Kaguya's hand and bent over to grab Black Zetsu.

—Utsuro-ryu!

As black lines trembled, Black Zetsu's shriveled body filled out again!

Naturally, the Truth-Seeking Orb staffs in Madara and Obito's hands did not disappear.

—Utsuro-ryu!

The power of time activated once more. This time, it froze.

Crack, crack! Amid the sounds of ice forming, blue-white frost spread over Black Zetsu's skin.

But Black Zetsu's heart was fixed on Mother's safety. Even this miraculous ocular technique failed to draw the slightest bit of his attention.

Until the very second before his time was completely frozen, he was still muttering, "Please, don't hurt Mother!"

When the frosty mist dispersed, Black Zetsu was gone from the earth.

After a long while, Madara finally asked, "Chen, what are you planning to do with Kaguya?"

During Chen and Black Zetsu's little exchange just now, Chen had proposed two extreme ways of dealing with Kaguya. Madara felt neither reflected Chen's true intentions.

Chen lowered his gaze toward Kaguya's arm on the ground.

This severed hand, still carrying half a sleeve, had been torn off by Naruto's monstrous strength back then.

At the end of Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei, Naruto had thrown Black Zetsu, who was still harboring evil intentions within that half-sleeve, into the Chibaku Tensei to be sealed along with it.

"Uncle Madara, I honestly haven't figured out how to deal with Kaguya yet."

"Oh? Even you, who are so good at planning ahead, haven't figured it out?"

"Yeah. Given Kaguya's stance toward the Otsutsuki clan, there is a chance we could recruit her. But it is only a chance, and there are unfavorable factors as well."

"First, reviving her would cost too much. We would need the Ten-Tails, a Jinchuriki, and Infinite Tsukuyomi, perhaps even absorbing the Divine Tree. It would be equivalent to walking the same road you and Obito once did."

"Second, Kaguya's abilities are extremely troublesome."

"If she hadn't been so obsessed with reclaiming Naruto and Sasuke's Chakra back then, she could never have lost. If she wanted to kill someone, it would be far too easy!"

Obito placed a hand over his abdomen in deep agreement. "Yeah. Even setting aside the All-Killing Ash Bones, if she had merely used Amenominaka to switch the environment to the Acid Sea Space, that alone would have been enough to kill all of us."

Chen said, "High investment, high risk, and uncertain returns. From an investment perspective alone, Kaguya is not a blue-chip stock. So I have no intention of recruiting Kaguya for now, but I do not intend to kill her either."

"Until we find some better method in the future to acquire Kaguya at low cost and low risk, I plan to freeze her first..."

As Chen spoke, he bent down to pick up Kaguya's hand. The soft yet icy touch traveled through his palm, and a flash of inspiration crossed his mind.

He turned his eyes toward the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.

More precisely, toward the Hashirama Clone embedded in its chest, infused with Madara's power.

Chen clenched the hand in his own, his heart suddenly pounding. Is this idea too outlandish and insane? But if it succeeds, it will be an unprecedented feat...

Once they returned, he would give it a try.

Crack! Chen froze Kaguya's arm, still bearing half its severed sleeve, within the Otsutsuki Time Zone.

He lowered his head and checked his watch.

It was already 10:23 in the morning.

Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei had only been destroyed by about one-sixth.

Black Zetsu's interruption had delayed them for a while.

They needed to pick up the pace.

The three Perfect Susanoo rose in full splendor once more!

"Let's finish this before dinner. We have to meet that rabbit lady at least once!"