Real Black Zetsu Meets Fake Black Zetsu

"Did you really kill Kaguya Wuzhan, Tobirama?" Butsuma Senju asked in surprise.

"No, no!" Tobirama hurriedly denied it, finally too scared to keep running his mouth.

Butsuma Senju frowned. "Then where did Kaguya Wuzhan's head come from?"

"I don't know either!"

Tobirama was on the verge of tears. He had claimed he would bring out Kaguya Wuzhan's head only to shake the Kaguya Clan's morale and mess with Kaguya Izui even harder. Who knew that before he could finish showing off, a massive black pot would fall from the sky and land on his head?

It was too sudden—so sudden that he had no time to prepare at all.

"Who's framing me?!"

Tobirama turned around, wanting to find the culprit who had thrown out the head, but behind him stood a sea of Senju Clan and Uzumaki Clan members. Every one of them looked at the two brothers with awe and reverence.

"Wuzhan!"

"You died such a terrible death!"

At the foot of the mountain, Kaguya Izui clutched his son's body and wept his heart out.

After losing his daughter, his only son had now been brutally killed as well.

Kaguya Izui could not accept this reality. His mentality completely shattered, and the nearby clansmen all wore grief-stricken expressions.

"Clan Head Izui, please restrain your grief," Uchiha Tajima advised, seeing that his allies were in no condition to fight. This was not the time to go to war.

"Let's retreat first."

"Retreat my ass!" Kaguya Izui suddenly sprang up, pulled out his spine to use as a command banner, and cracked it like a whip as he roared, "Charge! At any cost, kill Tobirama and Hashirama to avenge my son!"

The moment he finished speaking, he charged at the enemy army himself. The Kaguya Clan members followed close behind, their battle cries shaking the heavens.

Uchiha Tajima felt helpless. He sincerely believed that fighting now would put them at a severe disadvantage, but Kaguya Izui had been blinded by rage and stubbornly refused to listen. He could not simply abandon an ally.

The two clans were grasshoppers tied to the same rope.

In the end, he could only give the order and lead the Uchiha Clan members into the battlefield.

"Kill!"

Ryū and Butsuma Senju showed no fear whatsoever. They took the lead and charged at the very front, bearing the greatest pressure.

At this point, it no longer mattered whether Kaguya Wuzhan had truly been killed by the Tobirama brothers. What mattered was how to crush the enemy forces.

Thus, a grand decisive battle between the four clans erupted in full force. Earth-shattering explosions rang out continuously across the battlefield.

"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"

"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!"

"Iron Wire Flower Dance!"

"..."

"What a spectacular battle..."

Inside an inconspicuous dirt pit, Black Zetsu, transformed by Shusen, cautiously poked his head out. Watching the apocalyptic battle before him, he could not help sighing.

Though the combined forces of the four clans numbered fewer than two thousand, they were all ninja. Their momentum was no weaker than that of an army of a hundred thousand.

Sorry, Tobirama. I made you take the blame...

Shusen silently apologized in his heart.

At first, he had not intended to frame Tobirama. He had merely wanted to find a suitable moment to throw out Kaguya Wuzhan's body and ruthlessly crush the Kaguya Clan's fighting spirit. Who could have expected Tobirama's bragging to grow increasingly outrageous until he actually claimed he would produce Kaguya Wuzhan's head? Shusen had no choice but to help him accomplish his grand feat of displaying divine might before the masses.

Shusen was not worried about Tobirama. Tobirama had already grown strong enough that, so long as he did not court death himself, even drawing Kaguya Izui's full hatred would not put his life in danger. Ashina, on the other hand, was still a sapling, and the risk of dying young was extremely high.

Fight. In a little while, it'll be my turn to take the stage.

Shusen's gaze swept over the Uchiha Clan members' Sharingan one by one.

He had not put on the Black Zetsu disguise for nothing. Today, it would serve a great purpose. This was his contribution to the clan.

At the same time, in a dense forest several miles from the Ninjasteel Mine, an ugly, pitch-black head emerged from the ground.

"That familiar aura..."

The ugly head took a deep breath, sensing the violent chakra fluctuations in the distance.

"There's no mistake. I never expected that after sleeping for so long, I would encounter Indra and Asura's reincarnations the moment I emerged."

The ugly head muttered to himself, a sinister curve rising at the corner of his mouth. "Let's go take a look. I hope this generation's Indra is a little more obedient... Mother, no matter the cost, I will save you. Hagoromo and Hamura, you bastards..."

The ugly head was none other than the embodiment of will Kaguya Ōtsutsuki had left behind before being sealed away. To rescue Kaguya, he had laid out a grand scheme spanning a thousand years across the ninja world.

Kaguya's will originally had no name. Later, he saw that the White Zetsu army his mother had left behind looked very similar to him in form, except the White Zetsu were snow-white while he was entirely black. So he named himself Black Zetsu.

Thus, the name Black Zetsu was an absolute secret. No one in the entire ninja world could possibly know it.

Over the past thousand years, Black Zetsu had orchestrated countless conspiracies to save his mother. His shadow lurked behind every great upheaval in the ninja world, but he could not act without restraint.

Though the Sage of Six Paths had died, his chakra still drifted through the world, silently protecting the ninja world. The Sage of Six Paths was the only existence Black Zetsu feared. Therefore, he only dared to work secretly behind the scenes, and most of the time, he had to remain dormant in dark places.

Having ended another decades-long slumber, he had once again emerged to stir up trouble.

Following Indra's aura underground, Black Zetsu arrived near the Ninjasteel Mine before long.

From afar, the four great ninja clans were fighting fiercely. The entire battlefield was collapsing, and the earth shook with thunderous force.

Black Zetsu immediately locked onto Uchiha Madara within the crowd. There was no other reason—Indra's aura on him was simply too dense.

Then Black Zetsu locked onto Hashirama, who was fiercely battling Madara, and likewise sensed a dense aura of Asura from him.

"Interesting. Even without my meddling, this generation's Indra and Asura are still fated enemies." Black Zetsu laughed sinisterly.

"Hagoromo, you are indeed formidable, but your two sons are merely toys for me to manipulate as I please... Wait! Who is that?!"

Black Zetsu was suddenly horrified, his face resembling one that had seen a ghost.

He saw someone inside a dirt pit not far ahead!

That person was entirely black, like a humanoid monster molded from mud, and was furtively peeping at the battlefield.

Boom!

It was as if a bolt from a clear sky had exploded in Black Zetsu's mind, instantly leaving him dumbfounded.

That humanoid monster looked exactly like him!

"How is this possible?!"

Black Zetsu could not believe it.

"I was personally created by Mother. I am the embodiment of Mother's will. How could there possibly be another life-form in this world that looks exactly like me?!"

Black Zetsu did not connect it to the Transformation Technique, because his very existence was an absolute secret. No one knew of him—not even his name—so how could anyone possibly use the Transformation Technique to impersonate him?

"Could it be..."

An utterly absurd guess formed in his mind.

"Could it be that Mother left behind more than one embodiment of her will? Is he my brother or sister?"