No matter how many times he turned the matter over in his head, Chad felt that all of this was a trap laid by Jiraiya. With his ability to infiltrate and hide, letting someone see him near the border made no sense.
It was like pointing at someone's nose and shouting that you were going to break into their house.
"If he thinks turning him into a eunuch that time was cruel, he'd better not end up in our hands." Chad's killing intent drove away the animals around the mountain where he was waiting for Zetsu Negro.
A quick death was far too good for Jiraiya after what he had done. Chad had ideas that would make him wish he were dead.
To begin with, as confidant and student of the Third Hokage, Jiraiya's mind was filled with extremely valuable information for Kumo. Extracting that information from his brain would be an enormous contribution—and the first step.
As for what to do with him afterward…
"I remember Tomioka once told me that his cousin, at the far northern edge of the Land of Lightning, owned an establishment for burly seafaring men with 'strong tastes' and a rather large 'appetite' due to their prolonged voyages at sea…
I'm sure they'll welcome Jiraiya with great enthusiasm!"
Especially a Jiraiya who could move nothing but his eyes, yet still felt everything—and possessed great endurance and healing ability thanks to decades of chakra training.
With his medical skills, achieving something like that—on top of destroying the chakra network and placing a few seals to prevent trouble—was child's play.
Given that he was around fifty years old, Chad calculated that Jiraiya could endure at least another twenty years "talking about life and the sea" with those sailors.
Recording videos of their "conversations" and spreading them across the Elemental Nations would only sully the eyes of countless people. So it was better to limit distribution to the black market.
"I'm too kind," he sighed, shaking his head. "Who am I trying to fool? It'll only end like that because I can't think of anything worse for someone like him."
"Looks like I arrived just in time." Zetsu Negro emerged from the ground in front of Chad. "You look upset."
"I'm just in a bad mood." Chad's gaze fell on the unconscious Danzo Shimura, lying on the ground like a slice of meat out of water. "I only needed Shisui's eye—why did you bring Danzo himself?" he asked about the extra in the delivery.
"I can't kill him without alerting Konoha's ROOT—they have tongue seals—so I took him instead and have a White Zetsu impersonating him." Zetsu Negro dropped him like a sack of potatoes.
A White Zetsu acting as Danzo?
That could be useful.
"Here's the eye Danzo had." Zetsu Negro pulled the vial containing Shisui Uchiha's eye from his Akatsuki cloak and handed it over to Chad.
"Good work." Chad stored the eye for now. Implanting it would require an adaptation period, and with the imminent battle against Jiraiya on the horizon, he wanted to be in peak condition. "I have two more jobs for you. There's a clan in Kumo…"
He briefly outlined the next steps.
"Did you understand?"
"Simple enough," Zetsu Negro nodded. "When should I act? I need to return to Ame for a few days."
Chad understood the question.
He had been away from Akatsuki for some time. If he didn't show his face soon, Nagato and Obito Uchiha would start to suspect him.
More than they already did.
"Do it in two months, preferably when I'm not in the village." He gave him a wide window to act. In any case, Akatsuki shouldn't move for another couple of years.
But even then, their first target would be Gaara.
"I'll intensify Yugito's training if she hasn't mastered what I asked of her by the end of this month," Chad thought. "Maybe I can hire Kakuzu to deal with Hidan—he already killed his previous partners for money. I wouldn't even need to kill him, just cut off his head, submerge it in cement mixed with iron blocks, and drop the heavy block into a truly deep part of the sea.
Water pressure and lack of air will do the rest.
Immortality was a cheap word in this world.
After dismissing Zetsu Negro—and a Danzo whom Chad ensured would remain in a permanent coma—he prepared what he needed both for the confrontation with Jiraiya and for transplanting Shisui's other eye. He even took the opportunity to check the state of the nerve and optic connections.
"Danzo kept the eye in surprisingly good condition."
One shouldn't be fooled by the stories: the green medicinal preservation liquid for dōjutsu and other special ninja organs didn't make them last forever, nor was it cheap to produce.
A single vial could keep a pair of eyes "fresh" for a month before they had to be transferred to another batch of liquid. Even then, general formulas could sustain organs for at most half a year.
If you wanted them to last longer than that—or even allow slight regeneration of any damage—high-level formulas were required.
Perhaps Zetsu Negro had been in too much of a hurry or hadn't seen the need to change the liquid, but Chad transferred Shisui's eye into a vial with a high-grade medicinal solution for one simple reason: some of the nerves showed the classic signs of forced extraction.
Minor damage, but better to fix it to reduce the future strain on his body. Now…
"I still can't get the idea of a White Zetsu replacing Danzo out of my head," Chad mused aloud, not addressing anyone in particular. "Used correctly, this card could bring Konoha down."
It was like when, during his stay in the Land of Snow, it occurred to him that he could have some White Zetsus learn the Dead Demon Consuming Seal and launch multiple suicide attacks against the Kage of other villages.
It was recorded in the Scroll of Seals, and the technique didn't even require a contract with the Shinigami as some speculated—performing the technique itself was signing the contract at the moment of execution.
They could perform the technique underground and strike while someone was in the bathroom, for example. Even someone like Ōnoki, who might have developed a sixth sense from his growing closeness to death, wouldn't necessarily be able to defend against something like that.
Better yet, he could eliminate the Daimyō of the Land of Lightning and put a White Zetsu in his place.
Then the new Daimyō would decide that the Land of Lightning had grown too small for his appetite, and that the map required remodeling. If this aligned with the fall of key figures in the other great ninja villages—and a bit of information manipulation—the resistance would be…