A few days later, the attacks had ceased, but the Kumo camp had not let its guard down. Many of the Kumo ninja were actually even more alert than during the height of the war, their eyes bloodshot and always carrying a kunai with them—even when going to the bathroom. They did it in groups of five.
They had lost more comrades and friends to that lunatic than to Kiri. It was humiliating.
"Are you sure this will work?" Obito asked as he watched the Kumo camp.
A reply came out slightly muffled from his sleeve.
"Only for one or two seconds," Black Zetsu replied, clinging from Obito's wrist up to his shoulder. "You know my specialty is hiding and gathering information. I have no strength; anything even remotely close to fighting is White Zetsu's job. If it weren't such a good opportunity to obtain another jinchūriki, I wouldn't have suggested it."
Obito nodded, but internally his thoughts were distant.
"So there are still abilities I don't know about in Madara's will," the Uchiha thought coldly. "This was a troublesome trump card. Fortunately, I discovered it before executing the plan."
Black Zetsu's plan was simple. As he usually did with White Zetsu, he would take over Chad's body and immobilize him so Obito could finish him off in a brief window of time.
Now the problem was that, according to Madara's dark substance and manifested will, against someone with as much physical strength and chakra as Kumo's Dodomeki, he could only maintain that paralysis for less than five seconds—maybe one or two at most before it wore off.
That was the window Obito had to send him into Kamui's dimension or kill him.
Obito was alert and intended to take the opportunity seriously, but he felt no real pressure.
If he failed, either Black Zetsu or he himself could escape easily.
They could fail once or ten times, but if they truly persisted, that man's death was an absolute certainty.
"Obito, get ready," Black Zetsu whispered. "The opportunity has arrived!"
Obito snorted as he shifted position, following the patrol routes Black Zetsu had discovered.
It didn't take long to reach the perfect ambush point.
From his position among the dense foliage and above the branches, he could observe his target. And while tensing his muscles, waiting for the perfect moment, he failed to notice an eye that was open in the bark two meters above him.
…
After so many tense days, Chad had created temporary hot springs so people could enjoy a few minutes of relaxation while troops rotated shifts.
Due to habit, when he finished making the male and female sides, he made a third private hot spring for himself.
"Terumi still needs to keep pretending for a few more days and can't join me," Chad lamented silently as he soaked in the hot water up to his sculpted pectorals, his arms resting on the edge.
She seemed more hurt by the situation than he was.
Although it was understandable—he was quite the catch and fully intended to keep his promise to the Raikage… once they returned to the village.
He closed his eyes and sighed as he settled in.
Barely an instant after he finished the thought, Obito appeared, silently dropping behind him and extending Black Zetsu's possessed hand toward his head.
"Success!" Obito thought with delight the moment Black Zetsu's tendrils shot out to connect with Chad, who instinctively flinched but clearly couldn't move despite struggling.
There was no point using chains anymore—not against someone as physically prepared as Chad. While a kunai could have worked with a precise lethal strike, Obito preferred to be safe and moved his hand to the back of his waist, where a stolen katana from the Land of Iron rested, taken from one of its high-ranking officers.
He wasn't a great swordsman, but the katana was forged from high-quality chakra metal, and the moment he gripped the hilt, he infused the blade with chakra to increase its durability and sharpness, maximizing the damage of a single strike.
The sharp metallic sound of the unsheathing barely registered as the blade shot forward and came down toward the neck of Kumo's Dodomeki, still paralyzed by Black Zetsu.
The moment Obito felt the blade make contact and confirmed that the person in front of him did not dissolve into smoke, a twisted joy rose in the Uchiha's heart.
Until the sound of metal striking metal echoed with chilling clarity through the silent surroundings—oddly silent, in fact…
Obito needed half a second to process what had happened.
"Damn it!" he thought in frustration, dropping from joy into annoyance at the realization. "Earth Release: Earth Spear? The same technique as Kakuzu?"
Normally the activation of this technique was obvious, since it darkened the user's skin when hardened—but Chad was so tanned, and the hot spring steam slightly blurred vision, that he hadn't noticed the difference.
Moreover, the technique was strong enough to block an explosive tag; a chakra-coated katana wouldn't even leave a scratch.
"Black Zetsu is still holding him, I still have a chance!" Obito immediately switched to plan B.
Because although he knew the technique was weak against lightning release ninjutsu, he wasn't skilled in those techniques and didn't have the time to use one before Black Zetsu reached his limit.
It was obvious that, after processing his near-death experience, the man was struggling even harder to break free.
"I need a countermeasure for this," a fleeting thought crossed Obito's mind before he forced himself to refocus. "Too dangerous!"
So in the remaining time, he needed—
"Gah!" Obito felt his body stop responding and twist painfully.
Had Black Zetsu reached his limit?
But Chad was still immobilized!
It took another precious second to realize.
No. The real problem wasn't the enemy, nor even his own body—it was the parts of White Zetsu that had replaced his lost organs and limbs years ago.
Those parts, painstakingly integrated after first meeting Madara, after enduring seas of agony to adapt to them and accepting he was no longer fully human…
Had suddenly turned against him.
The shock made him realize something he had overlooked while focused on delivering the killing blow.
This was…
Was there a flow of chakra moving from Chad through Black Zetsu into him?
And the intensity was rising at an alarming rate!
Obito looked at Black Zetsu and saw his expression was one of horror.
Apparently, even Black Zetsu had no idea what was happening.
So proud of gathering information—and he fails at the critical moment!
"No, I have to—"
Obito died as the White Zetsu roots connected to his brain's nervous system violently reduced his brain to mush.
Black Zetsu collapsed like a patch of mud, while Obito's corpse faded like an illusion and reappeared five meters away, gasping in shock after narrowly escaping death.
The transplanted three-tomoe Sharingan in his left eye lost its light moments later, leaving only his original right eye.
"What… was—?"
Obito died again.
Chad submerged himself in the water and came back up a moment later, running his hands through his hair, checking that no dark mucus had stuck to his blond strands.
"That was incredibly uncomfortable," he said, watching Obito reappear once more, this time ten meters away, confused, only to die again. "Was that enough chakra?"
The sensation of having Black Zetsu on him was like being covered in warm, sticky gelatin. He would not be repeating that.
"More than enough. Even if he activates Izanagi again with backup Sharingan we don't know about, the White Zetsu parts will kill him, acting like white blood cells," Black Zetsu said as he merged with a White Zetsu emerging from the ground, regaining humanoid form. "You really startled me when you released so much chakra all at once. Do you have any idea how stressful it was to transfer everything without being noticed at the start?"
"You're the one who told me you needed enough chakra to destabilize the implanted parts in Obito. It's strange that, despite how you were born, you can't use your own chakra and need mine to trigger this effect— especially when you have control over them," Chad said as he stepped out of the water, droplets falling from his body. "Still, I'll admit it: using the White Zetsu parts integrated into Obito to the point they're indistinguishable from his own flesh to kill him is a brilliant plan."
He himself had considered multiple ways to kill Obito while accounting for Izanagi and the ever-present Kamui, but he had never thought of this method—he had been too focused on countering spatial techniques.
Since Obito and the fused White Zetsu parts were "one," neither Kamui nor Izanagi mattered; they remained connected and would reappear with him, continuing the kill.
Even if Obito realized the issue in time and somehow separated from the White Zetsu parts keeping him alive…
Well, that would kill him even faster.
"I'd love to take credit, but it wasn't my idea," Black Zetsu said, looking at the new corpse of Obito, one that no longer faded. "It was a contingency devised by the real Madara so his 'representative' wouldn't have too many independent thoughts. He made sure I, his 'manifested will,' had means to deal with this pawn if he became a problem for the Eye of the Moon Plan."
From the moment Obito was "patched" using White Zetsu, he never truly had freedom…
"Do you need the body, or should I dispose of it?" Black Zetsu asked.
Chad recalled how Zetsu disposed of bodies and grimaced.
"I need to bring the corpse back to camp so everyone knows the mysterious attacker was neutralized and the fallen have been avenged. Then I'll get rid of it. I don't want the village obsessing over those cells," he said. "In any case, we should consider what happens when Akatsuki realizes 'Madara' is gone."
He wasn't going to take Obito's genetic material to make more Uchiha children—he was afraid it might cause mental issues. Besides, due to the damage from the giant rock's fall, Obito had likely long lost any stable sense of gender anyway.
"You're not wrong," Black Zetsu shrugged. "They'll be relieved not to face 'Madara' again, but I don't doubt Akatsuki (and by that I mean Konan) will try to find out why."
"If they ask, give them a believable excuse pointing to the Land of Fire or the Land of Earth. I don't want them bothering us while the village and the Land of Lightning 'digest' the Land of Water."
We already have enough problems.
That reminded him…
Chad extended arms from his body, stabbed Obito repeatedly in multiple vital points and limbs until a pool of blood formed beneath the corpse.
Black Zetsu wasn't surprised. If people saw a body without wounds…
If they saw a heavily wounded corpse, everything was fine.
Chad grabbed Obito by the ankle and dragged him off to deliver the news, leaving a trail of Uchiha blood behind him.
Black Zetsu watched him go in silence.
"Not that Obito deserved any better… even among Uchiha, he was completely deranged…"
"Shouldn't he put something on?" White Zetsu suddenly asked. "Everyone's going to see everything… should we at least bring him a towel?"
"KYAAA!"
(Sound of mass nosebleeds and fainting kunoichi.)
"...No, I don't think that's necessary."