"I'm… so strong!"
As Kabuto finally entered the beginner stage of Sage Mode and organized all the knowledge Orochimaru had once taught him, his skin had turned deathly pale, and even his legs had transformed into a snake's tail.
The price was his looks—but in exchange, Kabuto's strength had risen dramatically.
At that moment, Kabuto even had the vague illusion that if Orochimaru stood in front of him now, he wouldn't amount to much anymore.
Still, Kabuto quickly suppressed those wandering thoughts. He knew very well that Orochimaru still had one final trump card hidden away—the Eight Branches Technique.
It was a forbidden technique Orochimaru had created for himself after witnessing the overwhelming power of the tailed beasts, allowing him to transform into the legendary Yamata no Orochi and gain truly terrifying strength comparable to a tailed beast.
Kabuto might have entered Sage Mode now, but his own base strength was only that of an ordinary jōnin. Even with Sage Mode boosting him, at best he had only just reached the Kage-level tier of someone like one of the Sannin.
"No. You're still not strong enough."
Just as Kabuto successfully mastered Ryūchi Cave's Sage Mode, the White Snake Sage appeared before him.
When the White Snake Sage saw the Sage Kabuto from his prophecy standing in front of him, a flash of joy flickered even through his cold snake eyes. Since Kabuto had truly mastered Ryūchi Cave Sage Mode, that meant his prophecy had not been wrong.
This human he had chosen really did possess the power to ignite the Fourth Great Ninja War with his own two hands.
"In my prophecy, you mastered a forbidden technique called Impure World Reincarnation."
"You pushed that technique far beyond its original limits. With its power, you could even wage war against the entire shinobi world."
The White Snake Sage's voice slithered into Kabuto's ears like the whisper of a demon from hell. The reason he had spent so much effort cultivating Kabuto was ultimately for one thing—revenge.
Ryūchi Cave had stood alongside the other Three Great Sacred Lands for a thousand years. And now Mount Myōboku was still fine. Shikkotsu Forest was still fine. Yet his Ryūchi Cave had been directly crippled by Uchiha Chizumi, to the point that even he, the White Snake Sage, had been forced to flee.
The White Snake Sage did want Kabuto to go straight after Uchiha Chizumi.
But the moment he remembered Chizumi's methods, he silently crushed that thought back down.
There was no noble reason for it. The White Snake Sage was simply afraid of dying. He was afraid that if he really sent Kabuto after Uchiha Chizumi, then once Kabuto was defeated, that Uchiha brat would casually send him to the Pure Land too.
"Impure World Reincarnation…"
"The technique Lord Orochimaru was researching…"
Kabuto was naturally no stranger to Impure World Reincarnation. After all, even when Orochimaru was developing its improved version, Kabuto had worked beside him.
The earliest form of Impure World Reincarnation could only bring the dead back and let them use their own bloodline abilities, but those revived shinobi were still limited by the caster's own strength.
Tobirama Senju had never intended for the technique to grant so-called infinite chakra. That chakra had originally come directly from the caster.
Orochimaru's first real improvement to the technique removed the need for the caster to bear the chakra burden personally.
His second version let the reanimated shinobi connect directly to the Pure Land and draw on its chakra to fight. That was the true origin of the "infinite chakra" concept.
After that, almost every further refinement Orochimaru made was built on that second version.
From requiring the sacrifice to contain the dead person's cells, to eventually making it possible to use even White Zetsu bodies for the technique—those were all Orochimaru's improvements to Impure World Reincarnation.
And the final version of the technique had ultimately been perfected by Kabuto himself.
The version he used didn't just preserve every advantage Orochimaru's version had—it even allowed Kabuto to project his own consciousness into the revived bodies.
Most importantly, Kabuto's Impure World Reincarnation had virtually no practical limit.
The Fourth Great Ninja War that Kabuto later triggered was jokingly called the "Dream Match War," but the sheer number of shinobi he revived made one thing obvious—Kabuto had lowered the barriers of Impure World Reincarnation even further.
"Exactly. Once you fully master that forbidden technique, you'll truly have the power to stand against the entire shinobi world."
"And when that day comes, if you help me destroy Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest, then we'll be even."
The White Snake Sage was cowardly when he wanted to be, but also bold in his own twisted way.
He didn't really dare cause trouble for Uchiha Chizumi, but he certainly had the nerve to target Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest.
He had never forgotten that when Chizumi beat him so badly he had to flee for his life, both Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest had stood by and done nothing.
That grudge, he intended to repay.
Besides, if Ryūchi Cave—one of the Three Great Sacred Lands—had been half destroyed, then why should Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest still remain untouched?
If they were truly called the Three Great Sacred Lands, then they weren't complete if one of them was missing.
And in truth, the White Snake Sage also had another hidden thought he couldn't admit aloud: if Yakushi Kabuto really succeeded in destroying Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest, then he would inevitably come into conflict with Uchiha Chizumi.
The White Snake Sage knew perfectly well that Shikkotsu Forest had signed a contract with Chizumi. When that happened, whether Kabuto wanted it or not, he would be forced into a clash with Chizumi.
And what if Kabuto got killed and ratted out the White Snake Sage afterward?
The White Snake Sage's answer was simple: he didn't care. He had already prepared himself to go sleep at the bottom of the sea. He was done with Ryūchi Cave anyway.
And besides, it wasn't as though he had directly ordered Kabuto to oppose Uchiha Chizumi. If he found some random place on the ocean floor to hide, he didn't believe Chizumi was really going to evaporate the entire sea just to kill him.
"Destroy Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest…"
Kabuto's face darkened.
He had known all along that nothing in this world came for free.
But if Ryūchi Cave, one of the Three Great Sacred Lands, had people like him who could master Sage Mode, then Mount Myōboku and Shikkotsu Forest—both equal to Ryūchi Cave—absolutely had their own Sage Mode masters as well.
Kabuto honestly had no confidence in his ability to destroy either of those places.
"Work with us."
Just as the White Snake Sage and Kabuto were speaking, a sinister voice suddenly rang out.
Under the gaze of both Kabuto and the White Snake Sage, the ground bulged upward. Then a black humanoid figure with half its body burning in flames, and the other half pale white, emerged from the earth.
Black Zetsu had finally found Ryūchi Cave.
And he had finally found Kabuto—who had only just mastered Sage Mode.
As Black Zetsu surfaced, the White Snake Sage's gaze grew serious.
His visions of the future came in broken fragments, but one thing he had seen clearly was just how obsessively this creature called Black Zetsu was plotting to revive Uchiha Madara.