Chapter 227: Entering the Land of Water
Black Zetsu's raspy voice faded into the damp air. Kazushi remained entirely still, her gaze lowered as heavy silence stretched between them. She appeared lost in thought, weighing the sheer scale of the proposition.
Just as Black Zetsu's patience began to fray, preparing to spin another web of lies to convince her, she finally broke the silence. "Will this truly unite the shinobi world?"
"Without a doubt," Black Zetsu hissed, his yellow eyes curving into a crescent. "This is the very path the Fourth Hokage sought. Even that elusive expert from Karaku Village—the one who fought the Fourth to a standstill back in Konoha—aligned with those ideals. They are already moving pieces from the shadows."
Kazushi lifted her head. Her dark, hollow eyes locked onto the shadowy entity. Deep within those abyssal irises, a faint, desperate spark of life finally reignited.
"Tell me what I need to do."
A dark, viscous tendril extended from Black Zetsu's form, pointing toward the weeping borders of the Land of Rain.
"A nascent faction known as Akatsuki has taken root there. Its founder wields the legendary Rinnegan. They, too, preach of absolute peace for the shinobi world... but I do not trust the eyes' current master. Infiltrate their ranks. Become one of them, and watch their every move."
The faintest ghost of a smile touched the corners of Kazushi's lips, though it did not quite reach her eyes.
"Understood. I will carve out a place for myself within Akatsuki. Once the board is set, I will assist them in hunting down the Tailed Beasts." She clenched her fists, her voice hardening with absolute conviction. "The Infinite Tsukuyomi must be realized. Stelle's vision is flawless. I trust her completely. Black Zetsu... you must ensure this plan succeeds."
"You have my word," Black Zetsu purred, his voice dripping with false devotion. "I will move heaven and earth to aid you. It is the sole reason for my existence."
Watching the unwavering fanaticism in Kazushi's posture, Black Zetsu mentally gloated. He had to admit, Mie's psychological manipulation was terrifyingly effective.
Forcing a puppet to dance via crude spiritual domination was exhausting and prone to rebellion. But handing a drowning, broken woman a single, golden straw of hope? That bred absolute, unshakable loyalty. Kazushi had been chewed up by brutal betrayals, stripped of every tether to the living world. Now, she clung to this fabricated grand design with terrifying zeal, treating it as her sole reason to draw breath.
He had already planted a covert Sealing Curse Mark deep within her chakra network, but he resolved to keep it dormant. It was merely a fail-safe. After all, Mie herself was a wild card he could never truly leash. Having a devoted zealot like Kazushi embedded within Akatsuki gave him a much-needed sense of security.
Shifting his focus, Black Zetsu's yellow eyes drifted over the fresh, bloody bandages wrapped tightly around Kazushi's torso. "Those wounds... who managed to back you into a corner?"
Kazushi glanced down at her side, wincing slightly as she adjusted her posture. "During my transit through the Land of Water, I crossed paths with a lunatic calling himself Minazuki Sugi. The bastard locked onto my chakra reserves and launched a lethal ambush without a single word of warning."
"And you defended yourself with that clumsy Water Release of yours?" Black Zetsu mocked lightly. To obscure her true identity, Kazushi strictly limited herself to basic Wind and Water techniques in the field, deliberately sealing away her devastating signature ninjutsu.
"No," Kazushi replied coldly, taking a seat on a jagged boulder to reapply her medicinal salve. "I was forced to use my full strength. Even then, he managed to draw blood."
"He actually injured you?" Black Zetsu's interest spiked sharply.
Kazushi was no ordinary rogue; her combat prowess comfortably rivaled the Kage of the Five Great Nations. For a random assailant to inflict such damage, they had to possess genuine Kage-level lethality. If this were a renowned veteran from a major hidden village, Black Zetsu's vast intelligence network would have already cataloged them.
"He claims lineage from the Minazuki Clan," Kazushi explained, tying off a fresh bandage. "His mastery over Ice Release is terrifying. But his fighting style... it is completely unhinged. He fights like a zealot from the Cult of Jashin. He shrugged off fatal blows with monstrous regenerative abilities and wove high-level genjutsu smoothly into his strikes. Given that the entire Cult of Jashin was recently massacred overnight, I would wager my life he was the butcher."
'Unhinged is perfect,' Black Zetsu mused, a dark glee bubbling in his chest.
Rational, well-adjusted shinobi were tedious to manipulate. He thrived on weaponizing the broken and the insane, especially those tied to the bloody rituals of Jashin. He had orchestrated his fair share of chaos using that very cult in the past. Committing the name Minazuki Sugi to memory, Black Zetsu smoothly melded into the earth, immediately dispatching a White Zetsu clone toward the Land of Water to verify the existence of this mysterious powerhouse.
Miles away, beneath the perpetual, suffocating fog of Kirigakure, Asun strolled aimlessly through the damp streets.
His history was a bloody mix of trauma: kidnapped as a child by the Cult of Jashin, subjected to horrific human experiments that permanently fractured his sanity, yet blessed with the pristine bloodline of the Minazuki Clan. He had not politely requested entry into the Hidden Mist Village. He had simply frozen the massive gates solid and shattered them into a million glittering pieces with his overwhelming Ice Release.
He could not have picked a better time to crash the party. Kirigakure was currently drowning in its own internal chaos. The seeds of ruin had been planted years ago when the Second Mizukage drained the nation's coffers to pay crippling war reparations to Konoha, extorting the proud noble shinobi clans to cover the deficit. Those simmering resentments had finally boiled over.
While the Second Mizukage possessed the overwhelming personal strength to crush any rebellion, his successor was far less capable. The Third Mizukage's administrative ineptitude allowed vicious factionalism to rot the village from the inside out. In a desperate bid to balance the power of the major bloodline clans, the Third enacted a series of draconian policies. As always, when the elite played their political games, the streets ran red with the blood of the common folk.
With the recent implementation of the infamous Blood Mist policy, the entire nation had plunged into a state of collective psychosis. Paranoia and murder were the new currency.
Ironically, this meant the genuinely deranged Asun fit right in. In a village where academy students were forced to butcher their best friends to graduate, a wandering, giggling ice-psychopath barely warranted a second glance.
He had even found a twisted sense of community among the battle-crazed Kaguya Clan. Drawn to his lethal aura, a new Kaguya challenger threw themselves at Asun every single day. Through the clash of bone and ice, a bizarre camaraderie blossomed between them. Of course, it was the specific brand of Kirigakure camaraderie where, the second Asun turned his back, his friends would violently rip a calcified rib from their own torsos and attempt to plunge it through his heart.
Asun, ever the polite guest, always returned the favor. Whenever a Kaguya gifted him a sharpened rib, he would enthusiastically gift them a bespoke ice sculpture in return. The fact that the crystal-clear sculptures were made by flash-freezing the attacker's blood and organs only added to their artistic perfection.
Naturally, a wildly unpredictable, arrogant powerhouse treating the village like his personal slaughterhouse made the political elites incredibly nervous. No faction wanted a walking natural disaster loitering in their territory. The paranoia was suffocating: what if a rival clan managed to bribe this lunatic into acting as their personal assassin?
After a disastrously failed attempt to recruit him, the Third Mizukage—despite sharing the Minazuki lineage—washed his hands of the boy. The administration silently agreed to let Asun wander, fully expecting one of the major clans to eventually gang up and exterminate him.
Yagura Karatachi watched this unfolding disaster with a mixture of utter bafflement and mounting anxiety. Bound by a reluctant sense of debt—Asun had casually saved his life during a recent skirmish—the young shinobi cornered the ice-user in a secluded alleyway.
"Are you deaf, or just stupid?" Yagura hissed, his youthful face pinched with stress. "I warned you about this! You might be strong, but you are just one person against an entire military force. If you actually want to survive in the Land of Water, you cannot just spit in the faces of the clan heads! Learn to deflect! Play the political game! Right now, you have painted a target on your back for every single faction in this village."
"Join them?" Asun tilted his head, blinking innocently before bursting into a sharp, barking laugh. "Why on earth would I leash myself to a bunch of weaklings? I am my own faction."
He reached out, slapping a freezing hand heavily onto Yagura's shoulder. "Little Yagura, you worry too much! A man cannot simply drift aimlessly through the bloody tide. We must harbor grand, noble ideals to make this miserable existence entertaining!"
Despite his irritation, Yagura froze. Deep within his chest, a fierce, secret ambition burned—a desperate desire to tear down the Blood Mist policies, end the senseless slaughter, and restore true stability to his homeland. Hearing Asun speak of noble ideals struck an unexpected chord in his heart. He looked up, eyes wide with sudden, foolish hope.
"Then... what should I do? What is your grand plan?"
Asun grinned, leaning in close. "First step: you are going to help me sneak into Mei Terumi's house. I have decided I really like little Mei. She is adorable. Figure out a way to get me a room there."
The fragile illusion of a grand rebellion shattered instantly.
Yagura violently slapped Asun's hand off his shoulder, wiping his own tunic in sheer disgust. Why was he cursed to deal with this absolute degenerate? He could not outrun the lunatic, he certainly could not defeat him in a straight fight, and because Yagura was the only person Asun actually talked to instead of freezing, the village had inexplicably linked them together.
If this grinning psychopath dragged down the wrath of the entire village, Yagura knew he would be caught in the crossfire. He was trapped. His only option was to somehow keep this idiot alive so they could both survive the impending fallout.
"Listen to me, Minazuki Sugi," Yagura growled, using the man's full alias in a desperate bid for seriousness. "The Terumi clan is one of the very few neutral powers left in Kirigakure. Do not drag them into your mess. With your completely deranged track record, if you push your luck with them, I guarantee the Terumi will be the first ones lining up to mount your head on a pike."
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