Mist gradually rose, the night grew thick, and moonlight lay like frost. The occasional flutter of a Night Owl's wings drifted through the air. In the forest outside Konoha, the air suddenly twisted into a vortex.
Obito Uchiha stumbled out, his single eye beneath the mask bloodshot. His left arm had been severed at the shoulder, blood dripping from his shredded sleeve and striking the dirt in tiny dark-red pits.
"Cough—"
He dropped to one knee and spat out a mouthful of clotted blood, his right hand clamped tightly over the stump. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting mottled shadows across him like countless mocking eyes.
"My, my, what a sorry sight~" A flippant voice came from underground.
The ground writhed, and a pitcher-plant-like creature slowly emerged. White Zetsu wildly waved both hands. "Our invincible 'Madara Uchiha' actually got one of his arms cut off!"
Black Zetsu's gloomy voice followed at once. "Who was it?"
His gaze swept over Obito's severed shoulder, where strange Chakra fluctuations lingered. It did not seem to be ordinary Chakra.
Obito gritted his teeth, his expression twisting beneath the mask. That mysterious person who had appeared out of nowhere, those eyes that saw through everything, and that Sealing Jutsu precisely designed to counter Kamui... all of it sent chills down his spine.
"I don't know... but he knew my abilities inside out."
Black Zetsu's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly. For a thousand years, he had secretly manipulated the Ninja World's affairs and known every person who could possibly affect the plan.
Yet this mysterious person, capable of gravely wounding Obito, was completely absent from his intelligence network. A thread of unease coiled around his heart like a venomous snake.
"I suggest you take back the Sharingan you gave Kakashi."
Black Zetsu's voice was