Torikaze smiled. "Father, how does it feel?"
"Good. Very good. These children are all excellent too. Make sure to nurture them well."
With that, father and son prepared to leave the academy.
After all, there was nothing else to see. It was not as though they could go to the principal's office and help handle paperwork, and Windcloud Mountain certainly had no interest in that.
Thus, the two returned to the clan grounds, ending their day's outing.
Late at night, in a cave somewhere in the Shinobi World.
A mass of black, gelatinous matter slowly wriggled forward before climbing onto a white body. The two merged into one.
"How is it? Any news?"
Black Zetsu stared at the moon in the sky and shook his head unwillingly. "There's nothing we can do anymore."
"Unless Torikaze dies, there's no way."
White Zetsu seemed discouraged as well. "O-okay."
Just then, a ripple seemed to come from the moon.
Black Zetsu immediately turned toward the moon overhead. "That's... that's Mother's call!"
White Zetsu felt nothing at all. "Is it? I didn't notice anything. Could you be mistaken?"
"No! Mother is about to break free! But I... I haven't done anything."
Black Zetsu began to doubt himself. He was clearly the only method Mother had left behind, yet every plan he had carried out had been disrupted by the Windcloud Clan.
That damned Torikaze! If he had possessed the power back then, he would have killed him outright.
Instead, he could only secretly alter the clan's inherited Secret Technique. Yet even then, Torikaze had somehow managed to master Cloud Release.
And it had affected him so severely that the entire Shinobi World had fallen under Torikaze's control.
He could only flee everywhere like a stray dog, completely incapable of reviving his mother.
He had