[A couple of hours earlier]
The sun did not set over the Kumo camp so much as it bled out across the sky, its final, defiant orange rays staining the underbellies of low, rumbling thunderclouds.
The camp itself, usually a model of Kumo's rigid discipline, was a hive of controlled chaos and bone-deep fatigue. The air thrummed not just with organised activity, but with a pervasive, low-grade panic.
The ground trembled at irregular intervals, a deep, unsettling vibration that originated from miles away, where the Two-Tails, Matatabi, painted the horizon with intermittent flashes of searing blue flame and earth-shaking roars.
Shinobi, their faces etched with exhaustion, shouted orders over the din, their voices hoarse. "Reinforce the eastern containment line! We need more lightning-nullification tags!" "Medic squad to the forward triage, now!" They moved in weary, determined streams, their attention funnelled entirely toward the distant cataclysm. Patrols, once thick and vigilant, were thinned to a skeleton crew, their focus pulled outward, leaving the interior of the camp—the supply tents, the command post, the medical wing—strangely vulnerable.
In the growing twilight, shadows seemed to lengthen and deepen, becoming pools of opportunity. And in one such shadow, between a supply dump and a latrine trench, the earth itself betrayed them. A ripple, faint and utterly unnatural, spread through the soil, a subtle undulation that moved with purpose, bypassing the faint glow of perimeter seals as if they weren't even there.
From this disturbed patch of ground, a hand emerged. It was bone-white, smooth and featureless, like polished ceramic. It was followed by an arm, a shoulder, and then the upper body of a White Zetsu, his lower half still seamlessly merged with the earth. His eyes, yellow and pupil-less, glinted with a cold, alien amusement in the dim light.
"So busy… so blind," he murmured, his voice a dry rustle, like leaves skittering over stone.
He moved, not with steps, but with a gliding, phasing motion, his body flowing through the earth and then solidifying briefly before sinking again. He was a ghost, a ripple in reality itself. He passed within feet of a sensory-nin stationed by the command tent. The man, a seasoned jonin with a sharp, intelligent face, suddenly frowned, his head tilting.
His senses, stretched thin by the massive chakra signature of Matatabi, had nonetheless caught a flicker—a void, a pocket of non-chakra where there should be the faint life-force of insects and worms. He took half a step, his mouth opening to form a question.
It was his last conscious action. From the very ground he stood on, thin, pale vines, tough as steel wire, erupted and coiled around his ankle with a sound like twisting hemp. A neurotoxic sap was injected instantly, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
He collapsed without a sound, caught by another vine that lowered him silently to the ground, making it look as if he had simply sat down for a moment's rest.
Zetsu continued, unbothered, his trajectory unwavering toward a large, heavily guarded tent at the camp's edge. It was conspicuously isolated, ringed by a double-layer of guards and adorned with more chakra suppression tags than the Hokage's own office.
Inside the tent, the world was hushed, a fragile bubble of silence against the external chaos. On a raised cot in the middle of the room lay Ayame, the host of the Six-Tails. She was unconscious, her face pale and serene, a stark contrast to the complex, layered seals that surrounded the cot beneath her.
Two Kumo medics, their faces grey with exhaustion, sat on low stools nearby, their eyes heavy as they monitored the seals and their patient.
The tent entrance, a heavy canvas flap reinforced with protective tags, rippled. Not from the wind, but from something passing through it. One of the medics, a woman with sharp eyes, looked up, a frown creasing her brow.
"Did you feel—"
"Snap!"
The word died in her throat. It was not a loud sound, but a soft, wet, final one. From the packed-earth floor beneath their stools, two sharpened roots, pale and vicious, shot upward. They moved with impossible speed and precision, piercing through the soft tissue under their jaws and into their brains. There was no cry, no struggle. Their bodies simply stiffened, then slumped, the life extinguished in a heartbeat. The silence that followed was deeper, more profound, and infinitely more terrifying.
Zetsu materialised fully from the ground beside the cot, crouching like a grotesque gardener inspecting a rare bloom. His yellow eyes scanned the intricate web of seals covering Ayame.
"They really tried, didn't they?" he whispered, his voice a sibilant hiss.
"So much effort to keep you sleeping… but your purpose isn't done yet. Not nearly."
He extended a single, pale finger. He touched the outermost seal on Ayame's forehead. The complex pattern did not shatter or explode. It sizzled softly, blackened, and then disintegrated, melting away like wax held to a flame.
He repeated the process, unravelling Kumo's meticulous work with an ease that was insulting. Then, his finger shifted, becoming a blur as it tapped several tenketsu points along Ayame's arm, neck, and torso.
Ayame's body jolted as if struck by lightning. Her back arched off the cot, her eyes snapping open. But they were not her own. There was no recognition in them, no consciousness—only a vacant, terrible awareness.
She sat up slowly, her movements jerky and unnatural at first, like a marionette with tangled strings. Then, as whatever force now controlled her grew accustomed to its vessel, her motions became more fluid, more predatory. Her expression remained a blank slate.
Zetsu leaned in close, his face inches from hers.
"You know what to do."
Zetsu's body lost its cohesion, melting back into the floor as if he were made of water, vanishing without a trace. As he departed, a single, smug thought crossed his mind:
'How fortunate that Master's will already slithers through Kirigakure's roots. Controlling this one was merely turning a key in a lock already placed.'
Ayame stood barefoot on the cold tent floor. As she rose, the remaining sealing tags on the cot and surrounding her crumbled, turning to a fine, black ash that drifted to the ground. Chakra began to leak from her pores—not the violent, fiery aura of Matatabi, but something slower, more insidious.
It was a white, bubbling mist, faintly luminescent, that smelled of rot and acid. It hissed where it touched the earth, eating tiny pockmarks into the ground.
Her head turned, not with human curiosity, but with the unerring instinct of a compass needle finding north. She was looking toward the horizon, toward the source of Matatabi's raging chakra signature.
"That chakra…" a thought, not wholly her own, formed in the void of her mind. "Calling me…"
She walked out of the tent. The two guards stationed outside spun around, their eyes widening. "Hey! You! Stop!"
She didn't respond. Didn't even look at them. Her footsteps left sizzling, corrosive prints on the ground. As one guard reached for her arm, her own chakra flared—a silent, invisible pulse of force that erupted from her body. It didn't throw them back; it simply washed over them. Their eyes glazed over, and they collapsed, unconscious, their nervous systems overloaded.
But within the puppet, the puppeteer fought back.
In the vast, white cavern of Ayame's mindscape, the air was thick with a humid, acidic mist. Here, Ayame was not the blank-eyed walker. She was on her knees, bound in heavy, glowing chains of her own making—the last vestiges of her will to resist. The real her looked up, her face contorted in a scream that made no sound, toward the colossal silhouette of the Six-Tails.
Saiken was curled in the centre of the cavern, trapped within a massive, shadowy cocoon of intertwining roots and dark energy—the physical manifestation of Madara's genjutsu.
"Saiken!" Ayame's psychic scream tore through the mist. "Wake up! Please, you have to fight it! You're trapped! This isn't you!"
The great beast stirred faintly, its multiple tails twitching.
"Can't… see…" it groaned, the roots tightening over its multiple eyes. "Can't… breathe…" More dark tendrils constricted around its muzzle, choking its voice, clouding its mind with artificial rage and confusion.
Ayame strained against her chains, a sob of pure frustration escaping her. She was a spectator in her own body, a prisoner in her own soul, forced to watch as her power was wielded as a weapon of mass destruction.
This was the true fate of a Jinchuriki in this era of war: not to be a hero, not to be a protector, but to be a coveted, cursed weapon, a playing card in a game played by monsters in the shadows.
Ayame could only watch as her body moved to where the Eight tails was.
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