Back when Ino served as Seventh Hokage, Konoha Village had already gradually expanded from its original settlement into a full-fledged city.
Population, resources, and money poured into Konoha like fresh blood coursing through veins, and the city spread outward at a remarkable pace.
In the southeastern corner of the city, what had once been wasteland beyond the village walls had recently been absorbed into the urban sprawl.
Tucked away in a quiet corner among the high-rises stood a lone orphanage that looked decidedly out of place — weathered and old.
The Konoha administrative authorities had always maintained a peculiar attitude toward this particular orphanage. Each year's budget allocation was calibrated just precisely enough to cover the facility's operating costs, and from time to time, ninja — some openly, some in the shadows — would come by to conduct inspections.
But all of that had come to an end today, because the director who had always presented himself as a kindly old man — Kabuto — was dead.
Everyone agreed that Kabuto had been an extraordinarily dangerous individual. As a ninja with no bloodline limit whatsoever, the sheer amount of havoc he had managed to cause over the years made it undeniable — the man had been a genius.
After the war, he had turned over a new leaf, choosing to remake himself. He inherited the dying wish of his adoptive mother, Nonou Yakushi, and reopened the orphanage, taking in children left homeless by the conflict.
When Ino was Hokage, she had spoken with him a few times and come away with the impression that he seemed to have lost his will to fight. Watching him behave so compliantly afterward, she had stopped paying him much attention.
After Konohamaru became Hokage, the village advisors proposed eliminating the potential threat before it could resurface. They hadn't yet reached a decision when Kabuto simply died on his own.
He was genuinely dead — and certainly not through any jutsu like Izanagi.
With death came the settling of all accounts. Whatever schemes he had harbored, whatever acts he had committed — all of it vanished in that one moment.
Late at night.
The candles, wreaths, and paper cranes the orphanage children had placed still surrounded the grave when the earth suddenly heaved and churned — and Kabuto, whose death had been confirmed by multiple Jonin and medical ninja alike, burst open his own coffin and rose.
Kabuto was more than ten years older than Ino. During his time as orphanage director, he had lived under constant surveillance, scrimping and saving to care for the children in his charge. Malnourished and worn down, he looked even older than his actual years.
He stood there in his own grave and looked at the photograph on the headstone, then reached up and touched his own cheek.
He cast a cold, contemptuous glance toward the sensory barrier at the heart of the village, a sneer curling at the corner of his mouth. "What a feeble body this is. But the calculations came out well enough — I have finally awakened. Mother... I will avenge you..."
He pushed the round-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger.
In the next instant, his gaze became something ancient and unfathomable — as though it had crossed countless spans of time and space in a single heartbeat, taking in all the rises and falls of these past decades.
Kabuto's chakra vanished entirely. In its place surged a vast, refined darkness — a deep black energy, immense and pure.
His features slowly shifted, reshaping themselves into a young man's face that bore six or seven parts resemblance to Kabuto.
He wore a sharp black double-breasted uniform and a long purple cape trimmed with gold. A long sword hung at his hip.
He drew the blade, sheathed it. Drew it again, sheathed it again. He practiced the motion twice to familiarize himself with it, then raised his arm.
A large bird — dark red feathers, red beak, yellow eyes, shaped like an owl — tore through space in an instant, beat its wings, and settled lightly onto his outstretched arm.
The bird's talons raked through space, and with a single violent pull, it dragged Goku Black out from the time current where Ino had discarded him.
Then it tore open another rift in space and retrieved what appeared to be a rice cooker. Someone peeled off the sealing tag, and Future Zamasu emerged from it into the desolate graveyard, his expression thunderous.
Most of Goku Black's memories had been wiped by the Time Deletion. His recollections were fragmented and incoherent, leaving him dazed and disoriented. Other than a vague sense that Zamasu looked familiar, he regarded both the man calling himself Fu and the large bird with open wariness.
"Who are you? Where is this...?" Zamasu rapidly calculated the spatial coordinates of his surroundings. "Are we in the Seventh Universe?"
Fu pushed his glasses up out of habit. "This body is called Kabuto Yakushi. In truth, it was a vessel I carefully selected for the express purpose of infiltrating the Supreme Kai of Time's time loop."
Zamasu kept his expression neutral. "And your true identity?"
"My name is Fu. I come from the future. I am Towa's son. She sensed her own end approaching and sent me forward in time in advance. Oh — I should also mention that I am Demon Realm King Dabura's nephew."
"Dabura?!" Goku Black reacted on pure instinct, immediately snapping into a defensive stance. Zamasu stopped him with a gesture, signaling him to stay calm.
Fu smiled and waved a dismissive hand. "I am not your enemy. As far as I know, your plan to eliminate humanity was dismantled by a certain... lady. As it happens, she is also the one who killed my mother. So you see —" he paused, "— our goals are actually aligned."
He patted the owl-like bird perched on his arm. "This creature is called Tokitoki. He was my most important companion in the future. Of course, at this point in time, he is still just an egg..." He let the implication settle. "He can effectively shield us from the current Supreme Kai of Time's observation along the timeline. Gentlemen — if you have no desire to be sealed away again, I suggest we find somewhere more suitable to continue this conversation."
Fu drew his sword and sliced through the fabric of space. A pitch-black spatial corridor appeared from nothing. He stepped into it without looking back.
Goku Black and Zamasu exchanged a glance.
Goku Black said soberly, "My memory loss is too severe right now. My head is a mess — I can't perform any complex strategic analysis."
Zamasu added, "My current power level, in the eyes of those people, is frankly insufficient. No amount of analysis will change that."
They nodded to each other in unison. One reached up and removed the earring from his left ear; the other removed the earring from his right.
Under the divine power of the Potara Earrings, they fused into a single, entirely new being.
The fusion of Goku Black and Zamasu remained Zamasu.
Because Future Zamasu was a divine being, this fusion had no time limit. Without a Dragon Ball wish to undo it, they could maintain this merged state indefinitely.
The fused Zamasu wore the grey-and-red-trimmed Supreme Kai robe, along with Goku Black's spiky hairstyle — though the hair itself was rendered in Zamasu's silver.
In this form, Zamasu possessed both Son Goku's immense combat power and the Supreme Kai's many divine abilities, and furthermore held Future Zamasu's immortal body.
The memories erased by the Time Deletion had largely returned as well. There were occasional bouts of headaches, but nothing beyond what he could tolerate.
He stepped into the corridor Fu had left behind. When his vision cleared, he found himself inside a room saturated with technology — wires of every color crisscrossed the floor, and at the center of the room stood several display screens of varying sizes.
Fu glanced at him, then pushed his glasses up without changing expression. "Welcome to my home. As you can imagine — I'm an orphan, so the place is a little cramped..." He let his eyes linger. "...So the two of you went ahead and fused after all?"
Zamasu answered with a question of his own. "Is that a problem?"
Fu smiled in a way that was just slightly too polished to be genuine. "Of course not. As an ally, the stronger you are, the happier I am."
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