"Yes." Inoichi nodded. "They are... quite strange, however."

"That seems to happen frequently with the Akatsuki."

Inoichi cleared his throat. "Frankly, there's no way to break this lightly, so I'm just going to say it. This Zetsu is not the only Zetsu." What a fucking surprise. "He is one of approximately five thousand Zetsus."

That brought even me up short.

Because, really? Five thousand? That's... well, smaller than any village, yes, but five thousand of him?

That's...

"Yeah, that sounds about right." I nodded, slowly. "The Juubi had at least a hundred thousand souls stuck inside of its body, so five thousand really isn't all that much, honestly."

"These Zetsu are... developed at a hidden underground area." Inoichi continued. "Inside of which is a tree containing a clone of Hashirama Senju."

Hiruzen's pipe snapped in his hand. A surprising loss of self-control from him, actually. "A what?"

"A clone of the First Hokage." Inoichi made the same hand signs as before, and, again, tapped the wall. The image this time was of a tree, except this tree had...

Well, what appeared to be a wooden man sticking out of it.

"It is not intelligent." Inoichi hastened to clarify. "But it is alive. And... well, it has served as the source for the Zetsu clones." Again, he did the hand signs, and again, the image changed, this time to a view of half-formed and hanging humanoids. "They just... grow right out of the tree. All they need is Chakra, and time."

Hmm.

That, and the Hearts and Souls in the Juubi. "Did Madara set this up?" I asked. "How did he know what he was doing?"

Because, really? How did he get those Hearts and Souls out?

"According to Zetsu's memories..." Inoichi frowned. "He seemed to believe that they were an unintended, but useful, side effect of cloning the First Hokage."

"He didn't know?"

Then he was being played. Probably by Black Zetsu, considering.

"Did they keep a statue with the tree?" I continued, holding a hand out and constructing the illusion quickly. "It would have looked like this."

One of Inoichi's eyes peeked open to get a look, before closing again. "Yes. It was stored on top of the tree."

"Hold up." Naruto raised a hand, frowning. "What's the deal with the statue?"

"It was the Juubi's dessicated corpse." Isobu responded. "Which was meant to be sealed away a long time ago."

"'Corpse' isn't... entirely accurate." I noted. "The Juubi never truly died."

I flicked my fingers, dispelling the illusion. "Madara was being played." I said after a moment.

"What makes you think that?" Hiruzen looked to me.

"The fact that he didn't know the origin of these Zetsu clones." I answered. "These aren't new births. These are old souls placed into new bodies. Souls that were already held within the Juubi." I paused. "Which... is a curiosity in its own right. When, exactly, did the Juubi pick up all those souls, and why?"

"Well..." Isobu considered. "It couldn't have been recent. The Juubi had them at least fifteen years ago, but, before that, the only time the Juubi could have gotten them was a thousand years ago, before it was defeated."

"Afterwards, it couldn't do anything." I noted.

"Could the souls not have come from the Juubi?" Son Gokū asked.

"Theoretically possible, but I doubt it." I answered. "You cannot feel them like I can. Each and every single one is exactly the same. The same age, the same emotion, the same will. Even with however long that Zetsu has been free, he has not changed appreciably from that baseline. If the Juubi created them, then it did so all at once, with no differences at all. None created before, and none since."

"Why keep them at all?" Onoki asked. "It's a Bijuu, what use would it have for such things?"

"That, I'm afraid, is a question without answer." I shook my head. "What use does it have for numbers, when it can split itself indefinitely, creating nearly limitless numbers all on its own? What use does it have for souls, when its own soul is stronger than all of them combined?"

"Can it do anything with them?" Naruto asked. "The Juubi created Black Zetsu, right? What other weird soul stuff can it do?"

"It-" I stopped, considering how to answer. "Do not consider the creation of Black Zetsu as something unique to it, Naruto. It is something that anybody could do, but which is so difficult that the number of those which actually achieve it is extremely low. The Juubi is simply one of those few."

Could the Juubi have created them?

I doubted it. If it did, why create the initial few hundred thousand and then never any more? Again, what would be the point?

So where did they come from? The Juubi was active a thousand years ago-

A sudden, horrible, thought struck me.

A thousand years ago-

When the Juubi had ravaged the land, and killed hundreds of thousands.

"Drich?" Sasuke asked. I turned to him, looked him up and down, before turning away. He was concerned; entirely understandable, because I had just completely frozen, obvious to all in the room.

"Could the Juubi manipulate souls?" I asked. "It wouldn't surprise me if it could. To create Black Zetsu means that it had at least some capacity in the matter. Where, however, would the Juubi get the raw materials? Where would it get over a hundred thousand souls?"

A chill ran through the room.

"In the myths-" Han began, slowly. "It is said that the Sage of Six Paths defeated a demon that ravaged both the lands and the people. That demon... is the Juubi."

"I don't like where that's going." Naruto spoke up. "Because that line of thought leads to a single thing; that the Juubi was taking souls from the people. That's impossible, right?" He looked to me. "Right?"

My head lowered.

"Please." Naruto asked. "Please tell me that's impossible."

I shook my head. "If I told you that, it would be a lie."

Naruto swallowed. "We could be wrong though, right? Because you said that all those souls are exactly the same, which means that if the Juubi was taking them, then the Juubi was also changing them, and that would mean-" He stopped, taking a breath. Sakura grabbed his shoulder. "That would mean... That would mean a fate worse than death. Everything you were... wouldn't be."

My eyes drifted to Zetsu. "There is... perhaps a way to find out."