The excitement arrived even sooner than An had imagined.
That day, while he was looking through the research records Orochimaru had provided, Zetsu emerged from the ground.
He was filthy from head to toe and covered in wounds. His black and white halves had almost been beaten into a single color.
If Zetsu had once been a pampered tuxedo cat, he now looked like a stray dog by the roadside.
"Lord An, you have to help me!" Zetsu pleaded anxiously the moment he saw him.
"Hmm?" An played dumb. "What happened to you? Run into some trouble?"
"Ugh!" Zetsu sighed. "It's that business with the Sage of Six Paths!"
"We'd tracked down Jigen, but when Madara went after him, something happened. Uchiha Madara actually switched sides!"
"The moment he saw me after coming back, he started threatening to kill me, saying I'd deceived him. He even called me Ōtsutsuki Hagetsu! It makes no sense!"
"Pfft!" An finally failed to hold it in, nearly bursting out laughing.
"Hahahaha!"
He gave in and laughed at Zetsu's misfortune, pointing at his miserable face as he jeered, "You deserved it!"
"You brought this on yourself!"
"You knew perfectly well that the Sage of Six Paths was backing Jigen, yet you still sent Madara after him. You might as well have thrown meat to a dog!"
Looking thoroughly miserable, Zetsu let An point at his face and mock him for quite a while before sighing. "I really didn't think this through."
"But I never expected a stubborn, blunt fellow like Madara to be persuaded by the enemy so easily."
"From what I know of him, he should have absolute faith in the Moon Eye Plan. How could he believe the enemy so readily?"
"The Moon Eye Plan was Madara's last lifeline, the only chance he