"There is nothing left in this world that can threaten him."
Kakashi's words still hung in the night wind when an extremely faint, sticky tearing sound suddenly came from beneath Turtle Island's rock wall, as though something was trying to peel itself off a corpse.
Naruto's Nine-Tails perception instantly caught that faint chakra fluctuation. He whipped his head toward the forgotten shell at the edge of the battlefield. Madara Uchiha's Impure World Reincarnation body lay faceup among the rubble, and a pool of thick black substance was slowly writhing at his abdomen, trying to break free.
"What is that?" Naruto lowered his voice, the chakra of his golden cloak instinctively surging toward his fists.
Kakashi's Sharingan turned slightly in the moonlight. Once he saw the true nature of that pool of black substance, a chill entered his voice. "Black Zetsu. He's not dead yet."
The black slime detached completely from Madara's body and twisted on the ground into a barely recognizable humanoid mass. It had no facial features; only the constantly churning black patterns on its surface suggested that some twisted will was still driving this body.
"Mother..." Black Zetsu's voice seeped out of that mass of black substance, hoarse and broken, with the mechanical quality of instinct alone remaining after the soul had been drained away. "Mother is still... inside the bead... as long as I get that bead..."
He squirmed toward the tree where Shengu Xuan was sleeping, moving laughably slowly, like a snake whose spine had been crushed.
Naruto was about to rush over to intercept him when a hand settled on his shoulder.
"Don't move." Jiraiya stood behind him, his gaze resting on the black-clad youth with his eyes closed beneath that tree. "Watch."
Black Zetsu had crawled less than three meters when his entire body