All White Zetsu were the same — yet to Hajime, each one was different.
Through gaining the ability to use water-nature chakra from the one he had just absorbed, he realized something astonishing:
White Zetsu might be treasure chests full of unknown possibilities.
If absorbing one could grant him water-nature chakra… then what about wind?
Lightning?
Or perhaps even… something greater?
—
Meanwhile, far away from the scene of Hajime's ambush, a certain White Zetsu that was traveling toward its main body suddenly stopped.
"A comrade's signal just disappeared… what's going on?"
This particular Zetsu was different from the common ones.
Serving as a sort of messenger—or perhaps a sub-leader—it had a rare ability: it could sense the faint "signals" of its kin over great distances.
In other words, it possessed a rudimentary capacity for processing information—a rare trait among its kind.
White Zetsu were notoriously hard to kill.
So for one to vanish mere days after the last meeting? That was far from normal.
Before the sub-leader could think the situation through, another "signal" blinked out—this one belonging to Hajime himself, as he withdrew from his "Zetsu form."
"A second one's dead!?"
Two White Zetsu dying almost simultaneously—and from the same direction.
That alone was enough for the sub-leader to figure out which two they were.
Every Zetsu operated independently, except for the pair stationed in Sector 037 for surveillance.
So if two signals disappeared together, it could only mean them.
The seriousness of the situation exceeded even the sub-leader's imagination.
Without hesitation, it turned and began heading toward the site where the signals had vanished.
It had to find out what happened.
White Zetsu were creatures that couldn't live without darkness, that couldn't breathe without conspiracy.
Losing a couple of units wasn't a big deal—but the sub-leader feared this might have been a targeted attack.
And if someone was targeting them, that meant the existence of White Zetsu might have been exposed.
For beings who'd hidden in the shadows of the ninja world for millennia, once discovered… how could they continue to be the hidden hand?
However, because the sub-leader only knew a vague direction—and because it feared becoming the next target—it moved with extreme caution.
It crept and crawled, wasting seven or eight days before finally locating the battle site.
By then, nearly all useful traces had been wiped away.
The scorched ground from Hajime's fire technique had already begun to sprout new grass.
There was hardly anything left to analyze.
At best, it could tell that the fight had been brief but fierce—a short, intense exchange.
Such vague clues couldn't reveal whether someone was deliberately hunting White Zetsu or whether the two had simply been caught in crossfire between ninja.
Don't underestimate the sub-leader's caution—it came from long experience.
They had lived so long that they'd seen their kind die in every ridiculous way imaginable.
One Zetsu had even been walking peacefully when a meteorite fell on it.
Compared to that, being burned to death by a sudden Fire Release was hardly remarkable.
The only unsettling detail was how cleanly they'd died.
The sub-leader searched for a long time but found no trace of their remains.
That absence all but confirmed its suspicions.
Still, it never once considered the possibility of someone disguising themselves as a White Zetsu.
It simply assumed that someone had discovered their presence and taken out two of them on sight.
Either way, the sub-leader decided to report everything directly to the main body.
—
Hajime, for his part, knew that his attack would likely attract investigation.
That was why he'd withdrawn so promptly.
It was inevitable that the Zetsu would become wary.
But there was a big difference between "someone has noticed us" and "someone can impersonate us."
The former was manageable—it wouldn't cause him any trouble.
If the Zetsu grew suspicious, they'd start with the obvious suspects:
those red-eyed diseases (the Uchiha), the Sage-bodied clans (the Senju), the strange sealed monsters, and other such anomalies.
No one would ever think of Hajime.
He didn't know that the Zetsu sub-leader's investigation would take so long.
After leaving the site of his assassination, he didn't immediately return to his camp.
What he'd told his companions earlier about scouting battlefields and looking for supplies hadn't been a lie.
So on his way back, he skirted along the outskirts of towns and war-torn regions.
Small clans had their own small-scale wars; great clans fought on an entirely different level.
Hajime wanted to map out the main battle zones of the current Warring Clans Era—so he wouldn't accidentally wander into a deathtrap.
In the grand stage of the ninja world, one needed courage to even show up.
Hajime, thankfully, had the self-awareness not to overestimate himself.
After asking around a few towns, the news he gathered left him speechless.
The small and mid-sized clans were fighting everywhere—"flowers blooming in the center," so to speak.
The great clans, meanwhile, were concentrated around what would later become the borders of the Land of Fire—"explosions all around."
His group's current camp was hidden deep in a forest north of that future Fire Country.
By his estimation, they weren't far from several major warzones.
Even though most of the information came from ordinary people and was far from precise, it all confirmed one thing:
there was no such thing as a safe place in the ninja world.
And Hajime faced another, very practical problem—he was broke.
Without money, he couldn't buy supplies in town.
That meant his only hope was the battlefield itself.
Maybe some generous ninja would "donate" supplies by dying in a conveniently accessible location.
Food, medicine, tools—their camp lacked everything.
If a kind-hearted ninja deliveryman were to drop off a few items, Hajime swore he'd honor that noble sacrifice.
And, as luck would have it, three days after leaving the town, he witnessed a battle between two ninja groups.
He had watched from the beginning—how they encountered each other, how the tension escalated, and how they clashed.
So he even understood why they were fighting:
They were fighting over supplies.
Supplies!
Originally, Hajime had just wanted to watch the show.
But upon realizing what was at stake, he began creeping closer to the battlefield, careful not to draw attention.
Both sides were roughly equal in numbers—each with a dozen or so ninja.
One side called themselves the Ishihe Clan.
Hajime had never heard of them, nor did he recognize their crest, but one look told him they were a great clan.
After all, they were the ones doing the robbing.
The other side—the victims—he did recognize.
Their ninja wore familiar headbands.
One of them carried a massive scroll on his back, sealed with a large amount of vital clan supplies.
Both the scroll and their headbands bore a striking symbol—
a pattern of five circles connected by lines.
Five rings—not the Olympics.
These were famous ninja, from a name that would one day echo through history—
The Sarutobi Clan.