Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. ...And Madara, stop putting all the other Uchiha out of commission, ffs!
Warnings: non-graphic animal cruelty; violence; foul language; Greenskeepers macabre lyrics.
Chapter 7: Two Minutes
"No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength." (Helmuth von Moltke)
Working as an assistant manager at Ashoro's most exclusive inn was more of a paid holiday than a job. Initially, I was supposed to enter the owner's employ as a maid or cook, and work as a covert agent for Souta-san. However, the afore-mentioned owner - Nakamura Masato, a greedy but spineless coward - had, yet again, tried to shortchange Souta-san out of nearly 5 million ryou.
Unlike the previous reprisals, the smuggler's most recent show of force had thoroughly cowed him. By the time I was installed as an (almost overt) monitor together with Taro - who took the role of elder brother and guardian, the owner was reduced to a groveling wreck who tended to stay out of our way unless it was to provide me with access to the ledgers I requested.
I had a five-hour workday helping the actual manager with any unexpected staff or client problems followed by an hour of inspecting the inn's financial accounts. This left me plenty of time to plan my assault on the Mountains' Graveyard hideout. All my free time was spent experimenting with explosives, timed detonators and compiling a list of pre-requisites for the transformation I would undergo in order to sneak into the actual underground base.
There were a few requirements that stood out. The transformation target should be capable of flight. The underground was littered with Zetsu clones capable of telepathically informing each-other (and, by extension, the main Zetsu body) of any intruders approaching the Mountains' Graveyard, therefore nullifying any surprise attack or any attempt at stealth; a wild animal entering the secret compound would be only slightly less suspicious than a human.
A human-to-bird transformation would solve the issue of premature detection but not the second one. It would take a conscious suspension of disbelief to accept the idea of a hawk willingly flying through a cavernous system by its own design. An acceptable, if not ideal alternative was a bat. It meant learning not only how to fly - with a mind not designed for such pursuits - but also how to do so blind, guided by sound through echolocation, in a way the human brain was unused to perceiving its environment.
I agonized over the problem for days but, since nothing more suitable came to mind, it was what I settled on and what I requested from Souta-san in lieu of my wages: pieces of clothing with chakra-absorbing seals which would allow me to maintain a bat-shape transformation for a number of minutes, until the chakra ran out.
It took him six weeks to deliver the first piece, a leather wristband with an intricate seal, which I started wearing immediately.
In the meantime, I had Nakamura-san rent me a warehouse on the edge of town. There I tested the various compounds I had assembled, power and strength, brisance and density. I was aiming for an explosive with a high density and a large shattering capacity. If the fragmentation was great enough, metal shell would become a useful secondary weapon, and would possibly penetrate some weak barriers - though this was simply guesswork on my part as I had no chakra of my own to test my explosives against any actual barriers.
In addition to that, I was forced to redo a lot of tests because of sensitivity. Something about natural chakra created unusual deviations in the calculated sensitivity; new, unknown variables which I had trouble accounting for and which were seemingly affected by anything, from animals, to plants and even rocks to some degree. Chakra interference also affected the stability of the aggregates - while I was preparing them - which led me to believe that, illogically, even proximity to sources of chakra had a minute influence on the deterioration rate of the chemical compounds.
The success or failure of my plan hinged on the efficiency of these experimental explosives so I was forced to take drastic measures in order to counterbalance the unknowns which I couldn't rationally, mathematically account for. I am not proud of what I did, but I considered it necessary. Every week, without fail, I'd buy five or more crate-fulls of rats from the local urchins and stick them, by the dozen, inside a five-by-five metal container with that week's trial explosive.
Looking back, I think some of Nakamura-san's twitchiness stemmed from the fact that he couldn't be sure some of those rats wouldn't make their way into his luxury inn and completely ruin his business. But since he never asked what I wanted them for, I never bothered setting his mind at ease.
After the wristband was fully charged, I went to the edge of the forest nearest to the town for my first test flight. What is it like to fly? How many people have dreamed of growing wings and soaring into the air? I could provide one answer to that first question. It's completely, utterly terrifying!
As I shifted into the smaller form, I found my body morphing faster than my mind could process the change. I was like a helpless babe, unable to handle the information I received from a host of new stimuli and my own, suddenly strange and unfamiliar senses. My new appendages felt wrong, clumsy and unwieldy, their weight disproportional to the mental image of my body.
I tried to lift myself from the ground, from the thick, sharp grass which was a much too painful cushion and managed to achieve flight through the panicked waving of my arms - wings, they were wings now. I screamed, trying to make my way by echolocation, but my brain was still sluggishly lagging behind. No obstacles presented themselves in my mind's eye.
By the time I hit the tree, I still had no idea what a tree sounded like.
My first attempted transformation resulted in a dislocated shoulder and two broken fingers - a painful reminder that all injuries acquired as a bat would transition from animal to human form. The duration too was very short, a downside to my nearly non-existent chakra levels. Further experimentation with one wristband proved that 32 such accessories would be necessary to complete the full, two-way flight and animal-to-human transformations required for planting all the charges; thirty-two chakra-draining seals which left me functioning - and looking - like a zombie.
I had only once traveled to the actual compound and the size of the cavern housing the Zetsu army was both alarming and awe inspiring. I lacked the sight to properly appreciate the endless lines of sleeping clones, arrayed like terracotta soldiers in the tomb of an ancient emperor, silently awaiting to serve him in afterlife. I could only form a vague image of the Gedou Mazou, like a gray on black image of a half-remembered sculpture pieced together from the sounds I had received during my erratic flight.
And when I would see these wonders with my own eyes, it would only be briefly, in between unsealing crates, activating countdown timers and flying to another section of the cave. It would, by then, be almost obscene to call myself a tourist. I knew with almost complete certainty that, while linked to each-other, the Zetsu clones were real individuals. Similar in personality and intellect perhaps, but a bee is no less worthy for being part of a hive than a fly for being alone.
If I considered them human, it was a massacre, the near annihilation of a genetically engineered species. If I forced myself to see them as sub-human monsters, it was still butchery. It made me aware that I was skirting dangerously close to crossing a moral line. It wouldn't stop me - 'for Isamu.' I would tell myself 'It will all be worth it, for Isamu' - but I was aware.
As the morning of Operation Scatter-the-Uchiha's-Forces dawned bright and clear, my stomach was tied in knots. After mentally reviewing the steps, checking the supplies - twice -, laying out the gear, writing and discarding four different Last Will and Testament drafts, checking the supplies - again -, I had run out of busywork and found myself pacing the room, biting my cheek and trying to contain the rising hysteria.
The nerves made me increasingly pessimistic and, impulsively grabbing a brush and ink, I picked up the leather wristbands and embossed, in Leo's simplistic alphabet, a couple of words: Wile E. Similarly, each of the explosive packages was stamped with the promising acronym: ACME. I comforted myself that at least this way, if I was caught, killed or blew myself up in the attempt, at least the irony would keep me warm.
In retrospect I ask myself, why did I tempt fate?
For the first part of the journey I took Taro with me on an impromptu two day camping trip, until we were forty miles away from the hideout, east by north east. I left him at the roadside inn with the promise that I wouldn't stray too far from the road in my efforts to find a suitable spot for my... meditation. After a light dinner, I left the small village for the second part of the operation, the hour long flight to the hideout and the nerve-wrecking infiltration.
The weather held and no unforeseen winds or unexpected rain showers troubled my already difficult flight. As I had done once before, I flew inside the cavern system, through a half-collapsed passageway leading into a tall but very narrow tunnel, swerving right at the first split and down the long flight of stairs at the second divide. The massive chamber opened before me, like a grand palace hall whose distant walls I could barely sound out.
This was it. I alighted on a narrow ledge to the right of the entrance, as close to the liquid as I had dared, removed the transformation and, with my heart in my throat and hands shaking so much I could barely hold on to the wall, unsealed the first explosive and activated the timer.
Two minutes.
I threw the now useless wristband next to the explosive, unwilling to have it drain any more of my chakra. Another transformation and I was flying clockwise around the wall, to set the second charge.
Land, transform, unseal, activate and fly. - A pattern I should have repeated, back in Ashoro, until it was as familiar to me as breathing; a pattern I had been unable to repeat, due to the prohibitively long time it took for the seals to charge.
One minute and fifty seconds.
My mind should have been empty of everything save the mission's objectives, my body focused solely on the necessary actions. Instead, by the seventh charge, I was getting overwhelmed by having performed so many transformations in quick succession. With the way my mind was lagging behind the actual body switch, I felt as if I was both human and bat, with both arms and wings, with sight and without.
One minute.
I nearly missed my next landing because I had forgotten that, as a human, my legs went down and my head up when resting. Panic built in my chest as my mind quickly provided explicit images of what would happen to me should I fall among the Zetsu clones.
Unseal, activate and fly. Fifty seconds.
To top it off, one of my (Soo-Jin's) memories of drunken sing-alongs had popped in my mind just as I was descending to set the second charge along the western wall. I focused on regulating my flight with the song's disturbing lyrics playing in my mind, crooned in my own (former) voice. "...the look inside your eyes drives me from control, evoking visions of my favorite casserole. And if i eat your heart..." Land, transform, unseal, activate and fly. "I'll also bite your soul... and when i'm done with that, I'll use your skull as a bowl..." - I flapped my wings closer to the ledge, trying to reconcile the impossibility of shuddering with a bat's nervous system (in both fear and revulsion) with my absolute desire to do.
I flew too hard and crashed, feet first, into the wall. The pain! I quickly transformed and wiped the damned tears that had sprung unbidden, clouding my sight. With shaking hands, barely able to see the charges, I desperately tried to smother my sniffles and whimpers. I was already five seconds late! Unseal, activate and fly.
'Just a little bit longer' I chanted to myself, 'Just a little bit longer. Two more, just a little bit longer.'
Fifteen seconds.
Out of the chamber I flew, up the stairs and down the halls, through the tunnel and past the collapsed passage as, behind me, the large chamber erupted in flames.
Focusing on maintaining proper flight trajectory while my brain translated echolocation to some comprehensible human signal was hard enough when I was healthy and rested. Now, I felt as if my lower half was trying to tear itself free. My body was on fire and I could barely think past the growing torment, let alone steer. I could feel my control wavering to the sharp beat of the pulsating pain.
Not four miles into the flight, I hesitated on a turn and crashed into a branch. Agony! My wing snapped and I couldn't hold back a scream. The transformation came undone and I fell to the ground, human again, battered and bloody.
I remember dragging myself to rest against against a tree trunk and cursing myself for my shortsightedness. Manic laughter bubbled out of my throat. I had so foolishly forgotten the old adage 'No plan survives contact with the enemy' and had packed no supplies to deal with the heavy injuries that I had now sustained. 'Damn it all!' I swore to myself 'I was meant for more than a Pyrrhic victory'. Much good it had done me, massacring the Zetsu army, if I wasn't around to enjoy my success, if I bled to death now, an unnamed assailant rotting on the forest floor of some deep wilds.
My stomach rebelled at the sight of the bone that was almost jutting out of my left forearm and both of my legs hurt so much that I could barely force myself to stay awake; skin and flesh was rent around my right knee, both legs were black and blue and my left ankle was either sprained or broken.
My remaining wristbands were out of chakra and it would take at least a couple of weeks for them to recharge. I couldn't fly home, my legs were useless, my left arm was broken and I was slowly bleeding to death. 'Fine, Fate, screw you. I'll crawl if I have to.'
Slowly and with some difficulty, I started peeling off my shirt. It took an eternity to drag it off without aggravating my wounds and still, I must have blacked out when I was trying to slide it over my broken arm. When I came around it was nearly nightfall. With just my right hand and my teeth I started tearing large strips out of the dirty cloth, to try and splinter my arm and stem the bleeding above my right knee.
I was on my third strip, my teeth already aching with the strain when, not twenty feet in front of me, a face morphed out of the thick, moss-covered trunk of an old beech. 'Gods, not now, please.' - an ardent but useless plea.
I had stopped tearing at the cloth but my teeth were still clamped around it, the dirty, blood-stained cloth hanging from my mouth in what must have been a ridiculous display of fear. I had forgotten about everything except the very deadly predator in front of me.
In the nearing twilight, the monster was bewitching, so utterly and inhumanly beautiful. I tried to recall if the drawings had hinted at his otherworldly looks and drew a blank. Yet here he was - the last of his kind if my genocide had succeeded - a degenerated, inferior clone of Hashirama Senju and yet so captivating. I blamed my loss of composure on the bleeding, pain and fatigue, as I was openly gawking at the cannibal's perfectly symmetrical features - the smooth, pitch black skin of one half and the mirroring alabaster white - the thin, straight nose, the generous mouth currently drawn in a frown and sharp, calculating - and, dare I say it, slightly curious - golden eyes trained on mine.
I should have remembered that, while I was on the ground, no place was safe from the clones, especially not as close as I was to the Mountains' Graveyard, where even fifteen years ago Madara had littered the underground with his spies.
My mind was slowly adjusting to the idea of dying and I was aware that this knowledge, on top of everything else that had happened today, would soon send me past my breaking point. Already I was wavering between terror, self-pity and anger and could only barely bite back tears of frustration - for having missed my only chance of escaping - and fear in the face of death.
"Huh, Zetsu then..." I rasped, setting aside the ripped cloth. "Tell me, how close is your nearest clone for you to have found me so soon?"
The only reply I received was him fully withdrawing from the tree. He made no move to come closer but I guessed that it was only a matter of time until I became the creature's next meal. I couldn't hold back my tears. There was so much I still wanted to do, so much I wanted to change. 'At least' I mused 'at least... perhaps... he might give me some answers.'
"Kuro-Zetsu, I have some questions, if you'd answer them." I stated, as firmly as I could. It must have been pretty pathetic, considering I was still wiping back tears.
His narrowed eyes and the minute changes in his facial expression suggested annoyance while his posture, almost his whole demeanor, screamed curiosity and confusion. He could probably smell the smoke on me, perhaps even some lingering scent from the caves and it was likely that I had been discovered as the perpetrator of the bloodshed.
Still, I tried to see myself from his perspective, where I was perhaps less an unknown enemy and more an injured civilian child, alone, in the wilderness, making demands of a bi-colored stranger whose name shouldn't have been known to me. It was a sad, sorry truth that I couldn't decide which perspective would see me eaten sooner.
His black side made no move to reply but a light, pleasant, slightly childish voice answered in his stead - white Zetsu.
"Oh, what would you like to know, little one?"
I tried to laugh, but it came out shaky and strained.
"I have questions to ask you too, Shiro-Zetsu. But I would like to sate the most burning part of my curiosity in case I.. get..." I swallowed twice and gripped my neck, physically trying to keep the nausea down long enough to speak "...before I... get eaten. As such, I would... like to converse with Uchiha Madara's will."
"Uchiha Madara's will? What an interesting thing to say." Kuro-Zetsu's interjected, interrupting his white half with a rough, throaty voice whose cruel undertones made me recoil. "That's a pretty tall order, isn't it, brat?"
I remember clenching my fist to stop from recoiling when he started approaching me with slow, predatory steps.
"You see yourself as an extension of Uchiha Madara's will, don't you?" I asked in an effort to distract myself from the fear as much as distracting him from whatever pain he was about to inflict. "Unlike your white half, who likes working with and for Obito, you are disdainful of his efforts, suspicious of his motives and would betray him, kill him at the first command from your master, wouldn't you?"
"No! We would never do that. Tobi is... Quiet, she asked me. Is that what you think or what you know, brat? You pose your questions with the absolute confidence of a statement."
"You don't deny it, either." I countered, absurdly pleased to have been proven right but also irrationally angry at facing an acknowledged betrayer. Shimura Danzo, Orochimaru, Yakushi Kabuto and now Kuro-Zetsu... I saw them as the scum of the earth, forsaking either their morals, their sworn vows or both - their allegiance either fickle or twisted beyond belief. 'And for what?'
"The boy can take care of himself."
"Don't mistake my questions for sympathy! That man, Uchiha Obito, I hate him! That fiend killed my brother. But you, you're worse than that. A betrayer is no better than a murderer." I hatefully spat. "And why? Why trade, so casually, a partnership for thankless servitude?! Do you have Uchiha Madara's memories and his desires as well, or simply his orders?" I questioned, gesturing at Zetsu's black half as I spoke.
"So blunt and disrespectful. Do you want to die, brat? You don't need to threaten her; though we are hungry. She was impertinent. Too... curious, perhaps."
His threats and insults slid by, almost unnoticed as I continued my heated tirade. "Are you at least an autonomous being like Shiro-Zetsu, infused with a mind and personality of your own or are you simply... a pre-programmed tool?" I was remotely aware of my voice rising but somehow, the occasion of finally coming face to face with the real Zetsu - the beautiful, frightening, cruel equivalent of the bland historical character from my memories - as I lay injured, exposed for a murderer and unable to flee had broken something. Our memories jumbled together and I was at once certain that some things had happened and that they had not.
"Pathetic... You wouldn't even deny that after more than a decade and a half of working with the Uchiha, you'd betray him on a whim! A whim... and not even one of your own!"
The liberating feeling of being close to death allowed me to speak as I wanted to, without checking my words to ensure I wouldn't say something that was not in accordance with this world, with this time period or with the knowledge I was supposed to have. It had made me passionate in my speech, frenzied in demanding answers.
"Do you know that Madara saw you as failed copies, deteriorating samples, decayed, degenerated genetic material?! What are you to such a man? What-"
"A tool, as you said yourself." he interrupted sharply, leaning down at my level "But, since you know so much about us, the better question is: what are you?"