Pre-Author's Note: Warning – this chapter miiight have a different tone to it. At least at the start.
Prompt Four: Manipulation can be a Game, Too
"Let us begin."
Madara Uchiha's eyes snapped open as he registered pain reverberating through his head. It took some time for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness of the compact room. The last thing he remembered… Well, that was kind of hard, actually. In all honesty, Madara couldn't dredge up any recent memories… and that was bad. For him to be in some confined space with no idea how he had gotten there, it really illustrated how screwed he could be.
After all, it would take someone of very special skill to get the drop on him and overwhelm him enough to the point of knocking him out. Of course, that raised a multitude of other questions, because the only reason Madara could think of for why someone would attack a Clan Head would be to kill him, and he wasn't obviously dead… yet.
Clutching his throbbing head with one hand, Madara struggled to his feet and maneuvered over to the one and only door in the room. It was wooden, reinforced with iron or some other durable material, and there was a tiny window with iron bars that was just about at his full height. Looking through the window, Madara could see a corridor filled with doors presumably similar to his own. When he saw Hashirama peeping through a window, Madara discounted one theory in regards to who overwhelmed him.
After all, Hashirama couldn't have locked him up if he was a prisoner here, too.
"HASHIRAMA! Where are we?" Madara bellowed. Any details would be useful at this point…
"I don't know!" Hashirama called back. "But it's not the Hidden Leaf; Sage Mode tells me that much."
Madara hummed thoughtfully. Was it possible that another of those upstart villages somehow got the drop on them? They had the most to gain from poaching two of the strongest shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. That still left the question of why they were simply kidnapped, though…
"Brother? What's going on?"
Madara felt the color drain from his face as he registered that third voice. Oooh, there would be hell to pay… Taking him was one thing. Madara could handle that with a cool head. But taking Izuna, too?
"Remain calm, Izuna. We will make it out of here, I promise."
"That… might be a bit difficult." A fourth voice spoke up, revealing Tobirama to be in a cell as well. "I've been awake the longest, and nothing I've done can get these doors to open. Of course, that might have something to do with the rod imbedded in my chest. Whenever I've tried using a Jutsu, the rod would stop me in my tracks."
That was when Madara registered it – a rod that was imbedded in his chest as well, and he assumed it was the same case in Izuna and Hashirama, too. How he had missed something so obvious Madara did not know, but it pissed him off. This whole situation pissed him off, really.
"Does anyone remember what the hell happened?" Madara groused grumpily. If they had to wait around for some captor to show up, the least they could do was gather information on their situation.
"Allow me to cut in, gentlemen." A gravelly voice echoed throughout the corridor and the cells. Not one of them recognized the shady stranger that now stood in the middle of the corridor; he had no distinguishable features, a worn-out black cloak and hood made sure of that. When no one attempted to interrupt him, the man pressed on, "You are here for one simple purpose… You are here to prove a point."
"And what point is that?" Madara asked in a disbelieving tone.
When the man shot a sidelong glance Madara's way, all Madara could catch was an eerie yellow eye.
"Why, that chaos is the natural state of this world. That no matter how many bonds you form, hatred will still linger. More importantly… that hatred is one hair trigger pull away from being set off at any point in time."
"I don't believe that!" Hashirama refuted the man. "The Hidden Leaf was formed after years of hard work and secret camaraderie! Our fathers never believed a ninja village could be formed, but look at us now! Senju and Uchiha are united!"
"And that is precisely why this little demonstration had to happen," The man now inclined his head toward Hashirama. "Your village only ever came about because I allowed it to happen. I thought that your attempt would fall flat before you ever truly got started, but you have proven your tenacity for the unattainable. You feel that now that your little dream has come to pass that you will be able to keep it from falling apart as long as you work really hard. You are wrong. There is no hope in this decrepit world."
"So what do you intend to do? Keep us here while the village falls apart?" Tobirama pressed.
A strange, raspy laugh was Tobirama's answer.
"On the contrary, you can return whenever you wish. In fact, I fully intend to let you out of your cells in just a moment. However, to escape this facility, you will have to work a little harder. One of you… will have to die so that the others may escape. It's as simple as that. There are no alternatives."
With having said that, their captor did something that enabled their cell doors to unlock, and then sank into the floor before any of the Kage-level ninja could get to him. Hashirama, Madara, Tobirama, and Izuna all slowly stepped out of the cells and faced one another. There was nothing else to say, really, so they split off to search for possible exits. One thing was certain…
The man hadn't been lying.
Later, as Black Zetsu remotely unlocked the only exit from the outside, he couldn't help but laugh at how easy it was to coerce these "great" human leaders into playing his little game. The 'Cycle of Hatred' was truly a powerful thing indeed; he had no doubt that with this little demonstration, Senju-Uchiha relations would plunge back to the levels they were at in the Clan Wars.
Many decades ago, when his Divine Mother gave birth to him, Black Zetsu had thought for the longest time that his only purpose in life was to resurrect Mother. All he could ever think about was Mother. Mother, Mother, Mother. He was Mother's Will. Mother's right sleeve. Mother's only hope for resurrection.
As you can see, he kind of got sick of having Mother on the brain, but more importantly, the 'last hope' thing kind of ran against his philosophy of there not being hope in this pitiful existence. Moreover, humans were a rebellious and versatile lot, so they would fight Mother's resurrection every step of the way.
So he kinda gave up on his original Sacred Mission.
Thing was, though, manipulation was literally a part of his very essence. Peacefully living alongside the human race for all eternity was something he could not do. So he found a happy middle ground; while he wouldn't outright rebel against Mother like the humans, he would refuse to resurrect her. But he would also punish the humans by forcing them to engage one another in battle.
Mother's Revenge from beyond the grave and all that. More importantly it was something entertaining for him to do. To pass the time.
Black Zetsu still took pride in penning the story of 'shinobi'; he still filled Indra with bitter feelings of resentment for Asura being Hagoromo's successor. And now he was forcing Asura and Indra's reincarnations to either fight each other or die together. Those were the only choices they had, and it appeared as if Indra's reincarnation had elected to be the sacrificial lamb in this little demonstration.
A pity. The man had so much potential darkness in his heart for Black Zetsu to exploit.
As expected, Izuna seemed quite surly with Hashirama and Tobirama as they exited the makeshift underground facility. Good. Perhaps Indra's reincarnation wouldn't be his instrument of hatred, but Izuna could. With much haste, Black Zetsu made his way to Madara's corpse, which was suspiciously left behind.
Of course, Madara was dead. Black Zetsu wouldn't have released those three unless he was absolutely sure someone had died. Which is why he was quite surprised when he went to pick up the body, Madara's hands swiftly flew up towards what would have been Black Zetsu's jugular if he had been a human. All the same, Madara's vice-like grip was uncomfortable.
"How?!" Black Zetsu demanded to know before he was consumed in black flames and flung aside like a rag doll.
"Whoops. Looks like someone forgot that I have the Mangekyo. Pity that you overestimated your manipulation skills."
"But… you… died…" Black Zetsu grounded out, unable to do anything about the black flames.
"Not that it matters to you, but Izanagi is such a powerful Forbidden Jutsu that it defies reality itself. True, I'll have to acquire a new eye to replace the one that is now blind, but it's a small price to pay. If you had really wanted to create a Prisoner's Dilemma, you would have made sure to gouge out my Sharingan as well as Izuna's – that was your mistake. Besides your overconfidence, anyway."
"Nghhh… Call off your attack, and I will help you achieve the ultimate power…"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, what do you take me for, a fool? You lost your chance to bargain when you captured Izuna. Now you die."
With no further words exchanged, Amaterasu eventually burned away all of Black Zetsu, and Madara took his leave. Well… at least Madara thought that Black Zetsu had been completely eradicated. He never realized that a piece of Black Zetsu had broken off from the main body and clung to Madara's gloved hand like glue.
And with him now returning to the Hidden Leaf, Madara was taking that piece of Black Zetsu with him.
Decades later…
"So what are we doing tonight, Lord Danzo?"
"The same thing we do every night, Orochimaru. Try to take over the Hidden Leaf!"
… Well, it was only a part of Black Zetsu that survived, after all. Of course it would take years to set up something new. Something unorthodox… but still something new.
Silly humans. Black Zetsu still had to prove that life was unfair, after all.
Author's Note: Do you know how hard it is to make something funny out of Black Zetsu? Do you?! … Well, at least I tried. Haha. I'll admit it started kind of dark and foreboding, but I tried to ease into the humor… I might've failed in that endeavor. :P I must confess, the trailer for Zero Time Dilemma heavily impacted the opening scene. Three more months… ^^
I wanted to try tackling Black Zetsu first 'cause he sounded like a challenge. One I probably failed, but still. Next we'll get into Hinata or Kakashi… I'm leaning towards Hinata-chan… An extremely blunt, cannot-tell-a-lie Hinata. Not that Hinata is a pathological liar, but when it comes to Naruto… well, throughout much of the series she had those 'fainting spells', y'know. What would happen if she randomly blurted out what was on her mind? Y'know, meek, shy Hinata-chan. Not Road-to-Ninja!Hinata. Poor Hinata-chan. XD
I also have to admit the temptation was there to have Izuna or Madara killed off... But I think they had enough angst/torture in canon, so I gave them a break. ... Shut up, Sasuke, I am not a hypocrite. XD
Hafta go, but I'll add in Review Replies later tonight, hopefully.