Black Zetsu, The Experiment From A Thousand Years Ago

Night fell, and in a small room at the High Heaven Pavilion...

The room contained only a low table, two cushions, and neatly arranged bedding in the corner.

Although the room was simply furnished, it was very clean, and there was a faint Yakumi in the air.

The light from the oil lamp cast the shadows of the two boys onto the white wall, swaying gently with the flickering flame.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!!"

Zhi bared his teeth and shouted loudly.

At this moment, his upper body was exposed, and his shoulders and arms were covered with large bruises and wounds.

"Bear with it, Knit."

Kou knelt beside him and gently comforted him.

As he spoke, he carefully applied the medicine to the wound on Zhi's back.

Kou looked at her friend's injuries with heartache and gently comforted her:

"Didn't you tell me that everyone in your family heals wounds exceptionally quickly? Just bear with it a little longer..."

"But that still hurts!"

Zhiqiang suppressed his guilty conscience and answered his friend behind him with a straight face.

"... He was putting on a brave face not long ago."

Kou lowered his head and murmured, unconsciously loosening the pressure on his hand as he applied the medicine.

"You definitely have to be assertive in front of those guys!"

As she spoke defiantly, she turned around earnestly and said to her friend behind her:

"Otherwise, they would definitely be bullied! Look at those bastards, they only ran away today because I intimidated them, didn't they dare to utter a single word!"

He spoke confidently, but then gasped as the injury aggravated his wound, and his carefully constructed composure crumbled instantly.

Kou listened quietly to her friend's carefree words and couldn't help but smile.

In this cramped room, the two boys seemed completely oblivious to everything around them, simply interacting as friends.

Beside them, a tall figure stood quietly in the corner of the room.

Kou stood quietly in the corner of the room, carefully observing the two people in front of him.

"Otsutsuki Ori, a direct descendant of the Ninja Sect."

Kou's gaze fell on the grimacing boy, and the information in his mind automatically surfaced:

"The second son of the current leader of the Ninja Sect, when the Ninja Sect submitted to the Ninjutsu School school, stepped forward to protect his family and to show his sincerity in submitting, becoming a 'hostage' sent to the High Heaven Pavilion."

Looking at Zhi's face, which was clearly in pain but still trying to maintain a cheerful smile, a complex feeling swept over him.

"The Ninja Sect, the predecessor of the Senju Clan, has such a dark history of falling to this state."

If the Old Man of the Uchiha Clan knew that something like this had happened, they'd probably be laughing their heads off...

Thinking of this, he slowly shifted his gaze to another boy, his expression becoming somewhat serious.

Otsutsuki Kou, the reincarnation of Otsutsuki Indra.

... and also the owner of the pupil power that he absorbed.

Kou tried hard to connect the boy in front of him with the white-haired old man in his memory, but he could not completely match the two.

"Is this the same person? Really?!"

Looking at the soft, cuddly ancestor before him who didn't seem like Uchiha at all, he murmured in disbelief.

But then I think of Uchiha Kenji has changed so much since he grew up...

Well, it's not actually that hard to understand.

Thinking back to that troublesome guy, Kou couldn't help but feel a wave of exhaustion.

He then suppressed his thoughts, looked at the weak boy, and his tone became more serious:

"Otsutsuki Kou, a direct descendant of the Otsutsuki Clan, a branch of Indra."

"Although he was a direct descendant, he was weak and sickly due to congenital deficiency of blood and qi. In the Ninjutsu School that prioritizes strength, he was regarded as a worthless piece of trash."

He was not valued within the family and was marginalized to the point that he wasn't even included in the training courses for regular members.

The clan's leader placed the second young master, sent by the Ninja Sect, next to this sick man, seemingly to "take care" of the frail boy.

But in reality, this is clearly a public humiliation of the Ninjutsu School by the Ninja Sect school.

Kou's gaze swept over the two boys' shoulders leaning together again, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly:

"But it seems... the effect won't be significant."

Even though that's what he was thinking, looking at the two boys laughing and joking in front of him, Kou couldn't help but feel a little pity for them:

"The reincarnations of Indra and Asura, truly a pair of star-crossed lovers..."

Through the intertwined destiny between the reincarnations of Indra and Asura, spanning millennia, and combined with the currently known information,

It's not difficult to predict the final fate of these two teenagers in advance.

With that thought in mind, Kou temporarily set aside the sympathy that had welled up in his heart and refocused his attention on the present.

Based on their understanding of the reincarnations of Indra Asura, they almost always become the most outstanding group of people in each generation.

Perhaps one can glean something useful from the two still-young reincarnations...

"Cough cough... cough cough cough!!"

Just as Kou was lost in thought, a violent cough suddenly broke out in the quiet room.

Kou bent over, pressing one hand tightly against his chest.

The smile in Zhi's eyes froze in an instant.

"Kou! Are you alright?!"

As he spoke, he suddenly stood up, grabbed the boy's shoulder, and said urgently:

"I'm going to get the medicine! I'll be right back!"

Before the words were even finished, the person had already run to the wooden box at the other end of the room.

Kou coughed as he looked in Zhi's direction, his eyes filled with deep apology...

A moment later, Zhi returned quickly, carrying a bowl of freshly prepared medicinal soup.

The liquid was a deep, dark red color, with a strong Yakumi mixed with a faint, sweet, fishy odor that filled the small room.

Zhi knelt down again beside Kou and carefully brought the rim of the bowl to Kou's lips.

Kou lowered his eyes, pressed his lips to the rim of the bowl, and swallowed the dark red medicine in small sips.

As half a bowl of medicine slowly flowed down his throat, Kou's violent cough finally subsided.

A faint blush gradually appeared on the boy's originally pale cheeks.

It was shallow, but enough to make Zhi, who was beside him, breathe a sigh of relief.

"How about it? Our Ninja Sect's ancestral medicine is very effective, isn't it?"

He bent down, getting closer to examine Kou's face, his voice filled with undisguised pride.

Kou nodded, his breathing still a little unsteady, but some color had finally returned to his pale face.

Thank you, Knit.

"Thanks to your medicine, my health is much better than before."

Since you came into my life, I've coughed almost half as much as I did in winter, and I can sleep a little longer at night...

Kou said gratefully, his voice suddenly lowering slightly:

"If it weren't for you, I probably... would be dead by now."

"Pah! Why make it sound so serious!"

Zhi gently patted Kou's shoulder and said with a smile:

"I received payment from you, so what are you apologizing for?"

He looked directly into Kou's eyes, a hearty smile spreading across his still bruised face:

Don't forget, we made this agreement a long time ago!

Once you're better, let's go outside and see things a hundred times more beautiful than this dilapidated place in the High Heaven Pavilion."

His voice paused slightly here, becoming a little lower:

"Perhaps... if the opportunity arises, I can take you back to the Ninja Sect for a visit."

Kou was slightly taken aback, as if she was somewhat at a loss for words due to the impact of the statement.

"Weave..."

As if sensing the worry in Kou's eyes, Zhi immediately raised her head and put on her usual cheerful smile again:

"So... for my sake, you have to get better too!"

Kou remained silent for a long time, then nodded slightly and responded softly:

"Um..."

"Have some confidence, you idiot!!"

Zhi gently punched Kou's shoulder with her fist and said solemnly:

"I can't guarantee anything else, but your swordsmanship talent is definitely not bad!"

"Huh? It can't be that exaggerated..."

Don't be modest!

The weaving voice suddenly rose a little:

"You're the kind of person who can see through the sword path of the Ninja Sect's number one swordsmanship genius, me! Do you know what that means?"

He continued confidently:

"I swear on my life, you're absolutely, positively an incredibly talented swordsmanship genius!!"

"Well???"

The door still stood beside them.

But his attention was no longer on the bickering between the two boys; instead, it was focused on the empty bowl placed on the corner of the table.

A few brown medicinal residues remained at the bottom of the bowl, and deep within those residues, a faint red hue could be faintly seen.

He stared at that faint red for a long time, then slowly shifted his gaze back to the cuffs of the coarse cloth garment.

He had noticed it earlier; between the folds of the fabric, there were still a few marks from the clean bandages that had just been changed.

On the innermost layer, there was a faint hint of red.

Looking at Xiang Zhi's face, her cheerful smile still seemed full of vitality.

But with Kou Na's powerful insight, it wasn't hard to see that the boy's face was noticeably paler than before.

"So that's how it is."

As if understanding something, Kou murmured to himself:

"To enhance the effects of medicine by infusing it with one's own vibrant blood."

"Use the blood of the Asura reincarnation, infused with surging life force, to replenish the deficiency of blood and energy inherent in the Indra reincarnation."

What was clearly a touching act, however, only showed a growing sense of solemnity in Kou's eyes.

"Let the reincarnation of Indra drink the blood of the reincarnation of Asura, day after day, for many years..."

It was practically a long-term experiment.

Kou slowly turned his head, his cold gaze passing through the window to the lonely, full moon:

"Throughout the history of the Ninja World over the past thousand years, we can truly see your shadow everywhere, Black Zetsu."

He turned his gaze away from the window and back to the two boys laughing and cuddling together under the lamplight.

Their current situation, their current ties, and their ultimate fate are all products of the deliberate manipulation of the person behind the scenes.

But they... knew nothing about it.

Kou gave them one last sympathetic look and murmured to himself:

"How tragic, a life manipulated by others..."

Kou shifted his gaze from the two people in front of him and looked at the full moon outside the window.

The information I need is no longer available in the current timeline.

"At this point, you should press the fast-forward button."

Thinking this, Kou silently mobilized his mental energy.

Heaven Manufacturing, Initiate!!

Several years passed quickly, driven by his unwavering determination.

The two boys who had been embracing each other under the lamplight had, in that instant, transformed into fourteen-year-olds...

(Do you all find the storyline of this dungeon acceptable? If you don't like it, I'll try to summarize the storyline as quickly as possible and get back to the main story.)