When the secret chamber sealed shut, Gen did not rush outside.
The Tracking Team at the entrance was evacuating the Record Fragments along two routes.
If he forced the stone door open, Black Zetsu could follow the chakra into the crowd.
Gen cut off his own communication link instead.
The last thing he sent out was not a combat order.
It was only a status report.
"A Black Zetsu Remnant is present inside the secret chamber."
Location, head count, and next steps were all left blank.
Those outside could not interpret those blanks as a request for rescue.
Nor could they record them as Gen having decided to sacrifice himself.
Black Zetsu seeped out of the cracks in the wall.
After losing his stable anchor, he could no longer maintain a complete human form.
Dozens of black threads surrounded Gen, but did not immediately attack his body.
"They'll only listen to you."
Black Zetsu condensed the hundreds of past deviations in fate into a single conclusion.
The Uchiha had mobilized for rescue because Gen pushed them to.
Shisui had not gone down the path of sacrifice because Gen stopped him.
Itachi had not chosen to massacre his clan because Gen kept dismantling that choice.
The Five Nations had established distributed records, and the Lunar Surface had lost its sole key. Gen's judgment had played a part in every one of those changes.
Once this man died, the various sides would sooner or later fight over the answers again for their own interests.
Gen did not deny his role.
The information he brought with him from another world had allowed him to see the outcome sooner than anyone else.
The system's rewards had also given him the power to change critical turning points.
The question had never been whether he mattered.