The moment Ren sensed movement beneath the soil, his mood actually lifted. White Zetsu was coming straight for him and Black was heading toward Itachi.
'Perfect.'
If the black half tried to attach itself to Itachi directly, then Itachi would feel it, truly feel it. Not a theory or Ren's speculation but direct contact. That kind of shock was far more effective than any lecture and if Itachi understood the scale of the threat, Danzo's implanted suggestion would crack even faster.
Ren's mind ran numbers automatically.
He had used more chakra than he would have liked in the clash with Susanoo. Even fighting economically, the elemental barrages, the Earth walls, the precise FTG usage to discard Amaterasu flames, it all added up. Rough estimate was that about forty percent gone.
Sixty percent remained.
For most shinobi, sixty percent after a battle like that meant near exhaustion.
For Ren, whose chakra reserves were already deep into Kage territory, it was still a dangerous amount of power.
More than enough to stall because he wasn't here to kill White Zetsu. He was here to make it uncomfortable.
The ground beneath him rippled.
Ren didn't wait, Earth-Yang chakra surged outward, hardening across his body in one smooth motion, he did a full coverage from skull to soles.
A dark, stone-like sheen wrapped over him, dense, compact, reinforced with Yang vitality. Every joint layered carefully to preserve mobility.
Then he cut the chakra supply completely. The armor remained but the flow stopped.
Right on cue, the earth behind him split open and White Zetsu erupted outward in a fluid motion, pale body stretching unnaturally as it spread a fine mist around him.
Spores.
They descended like drifting ash and coated Ren from all sides.
Normally, those spores would immediately latch onto a chakra signature, burrow in, begin siphoning and multiplying, slow at first, then aggressive.
But nothing happened.
The spores rested uselessly on the inert surface of Ren's armor as there was no chakra to bite into and no network to invade.
White Zetsu paused.
Its expression didn't change much, it rarely did, but something in its body language shifted.
"…Oh?" it murmured.
Ren didn't respond.
Instead, he detached. The hardened shell cracked from the inside as Ren slipped out in a blur, shedding the inert armor like a molted skin. The empty shell collapsed behind him while he flickered to Zetsu's blind side.
A dense sphere of lightning formed in his palm.
"Let's see how you like voltage," Ren muttered.
He thrust the sphere forward and released it point-blank. The lightning detonated against White Zetsu's torso, exploding outward in jagged arcs. The forest around them lit up in a blinding flash as current surged through Zetsu's body.
White Zetsu convulsed.
Its pale frame spasmed violently, cracks of black spreading briefly along its surface as the electricity crawled through every inch.
For a second it actually looked destabilized.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.
'Interesting.'
White Zetsu was durable, extremely durable and it even had regenerative abilities.
But lightning disrupted it.
The lightning finally dispersed, smoke rising from Zetsu's charred exterior. Its body reformed slowly, skin knitting back together like damp clay reshaping itself.
"Heehee…" White Zetsu giggled faintly. "That tickles."
Ren didn't wait for round two as the ground around him erupted again.
This time not one but hundreds White Zetsu clones burst from the soil in waves, their pale forms swarming like a living tide, arms elongated, faces twisted, hands reaching.
Ren exhaled once.
He spread his fingers and released a radial burst.
Lightning cutters exploded outward in all directions, thin, razor-edged arcs of compressed current slicing through the air like spinning discs.
The forest turned into a strobe of blue-white flashes.
Crack.
Snap.
Scream.
Dozens of clones were severed instantly, torsos splitting, limbs disintegrating under the cutting arcs. Others convulsed and collapsed, their bodies melting back into the soil as their cohesion failed.
But more kept coming.
They weren't intelligent individually, just disposable biomass.
Ren pivoted smoothly, feet shifting in precise steps as he maintained spacing. His movements were efficient, measured. No wasted energy.
He launched another wave.
Then another.
Some clones reached within striking distance but Ren switched elements mid-motion.
A sharp Wind release pulse expanded from his center, shredding three at once, then transitioned immediately into a low Earth ripple that destabilized the ground beneath the approaching wave, causing them to sink waist-deep before lightning spears pinned them down.
Even injured, even conserving chakra, Ren flowed between elements like switching grips in a spar.
The clones kept falling.
The original White Zetsu remained at mid-range, watching.
Studying.
"So lightning disrupts you," Ren muttered under his breath. "But doesn't kill you outright."
He stepped forward this time.
Another lightning sphere formed, but denser and thicker. A tighter rotation of current, compressed further than before.
White Zetsu sensed the shift and retreated a half-step.
Ren smirked slightly. 'Original's just a very durable organism,' he thought calmly. 'Still biological and still conductive.'
He hurled the sphere again, this time splitting it mid-flight into multiple branching arcs that chased the original White Zetsu from different angles.
The lightning struck.
Again.
And again.
White Zetsu screamed this time, not loudly, but sharply as its body contorted under the sustained discharge.
The surrounding clones faltered slightly.
Ren didn't push forward recklessly.
He held position to let the current run, to let it cook.
But he didn't overcommit chakra after all this wasn't a kill attempt, this was pressure.
He needed Zetsu to feel resistance. To feel that engaging here was costly.
Because the moment Zetsu realized something was wrong, truly wrong, it would run and before it ran, Itachi would know the truth.
Lightning finally faded again.
White Zetsu's body reformed, though slower this time. Small blackened fractures lingered longer before sealing.
"Heehee… you're troublesome," it whispered.
Ren rolled his shoulder slightly, feeling the pull of his abdominal injury beneath Tsunade's temporary stabilization barrier.
"I get that a lot," he replied.
~~~
On the other side of the battlefield, just beyond the fading sparks of Ren's lightning storm, Itachi felt a presence it was not chakra in the normal sense, there was no killing intent or hostility but it was something layered.
The moment that black mass peeled itself halfway out of the earth, Itachi's instincts screamed.
He jumped back instantly, landing several meters away, cloak fluttering as he steadied himself. His Mangekyo spun slowly, blood already trailing down his cheeks.
Half of the creature's body emerged, pitch black, textured like hardened tar, the other half pale and plant-like. It didn't move like a human, it unfolded.
Itachi stared at it cautiously.
'This thing…'
His senses brushed against it.
Nothing.
'I can't read it.'
For someone like Itachi, who dissected battlefields in seconds, that was deeply unsettling.
Black Zetsu observed him in return, there was no hurry, No tension. Every Indra reincarnation it had manipulated in the past had reacted the same way at first, caution, suspicion, then hunger. It knew the pattern well.
Compared to Madara, compared to the others, Itachi was almost… restrained.
'Interesting.'
Then Black Zetsu tilted its head slightly.
Its arm.
It was burning.
Amaterasu still clung to the limb, black flames crawling hungrily across its surface.
Zetsu observed it without emotion.
'They're all the same,' it thought with cold detachment.
Without hesitation, the black half simply tore its own arm off at the shoulder. The severed limb dropped to the ground and continued burning until it was nothing but ash.
A new arm regrew almost immediately, pushing out from its body like a plant sprouting from soil.
Itachi's eyes narrowed slightly. Regeneration, also not normal.
Black Zetsu spoke then, its voice strange, neither fully human nor fully something else.
"Itachi Uchiha. Come with me."
Itachi did not respond.
"I will make you strong enough to kill anyone standing in your way," Zetsu continued smoothly. "I will help you become the strongest."
There was no emotion in the offer.
Just certainty.
Zetsu had refined this script over centuries.
Uchiha desired power. It had ensured that through subtle manipulation, through engraved hatred, through carefully cultivated cycles of rivalry and despair.
Every generation, the same flaw.
Power.
Give them a taste of it, and they would follow.
And this one, this one had just been forced back by a Senju.
Defeated.
Injured.
Emotionally unstable.
Perfect.
"Think about your little brother, Sasuke," Zetsu continued, tone sharpening just slightly. "Do you believe the village will simply forgive you? You attempted to kill the Hokage and the future Hokage."
Itachi's fingers twitched.
Zetsu pressed.
"They will not forget."
A pause.
"Not unless you possess absolute strength."
The forest around them felt suffocatingly still.
"For that… come with me."
Its black surface shifted subtly.
"For absolute strength that could destroy the Leaf Village… come with me."
It leaned closer.
"For your brother, for Sasuke."
The words hung in the air however Zetsu would never have imagined that centuries of carefully curated psychological manipulation might fail here.
Because Itachi Uchiha was not like the others.
He did not crave power for dominance.
He did not crave power for pride.
He did not crave power for revenge.
Ever since he was four years old, since he had walked across a battlefield filled with corpses and broken bodies, he had craved only one thing.
Peace.
Peace without screaming.
Peace without blood.
Peace without children dying for decisions made by adults.
He trained not because he wanted power but because he believed power was the prerequisite for peace.
Now this creature was offering him strength.
But strength for what?
"To destroy the village."
The words echoed in his skull.
Destroy.
The village.
He had never wanted that, he wanted to protect it, protect the clan, protect Sasuke.
His mind began to throb.
'Protect the village.'
The command felt heavy and layered.
Shisui's Mangekyo.
Danzo's manipulation.
Everything tangled together like threads tightening around his thoughts.
'I… what was I supposed to do?'
Images flashed.
Hiruzen's face.
Ren stepping in front of the blade.
Sasuke's small figure watching him with admiration.
War.
Bodies.
Flames.
His head felt like it was splitting apart.
Blood flowed more freely now from his Mangekyo, trailing down his jaw and dripping to the forest floor.
'I just wanted to protect the village…'
His breathing became uneven.
'The clan…'
The clan that had nearly fallen to civil war.
The clan Ren had helped stabilize.
'Sasuke…'
The thought of Sasuke pierced through everything else.
'Why…?'
The question echoed inside Itachi's skull, not loud, but constant and persistent. Like water dripping inside a cave, hollowing something out over time.
'Why are so many people against peace?'
His breath came uneven at first, chest rising and falling as blood continued to slide down from his eyes. His fingers were still trembling against the soil, nails digging into the dirt as if anchoring himself to something real.
'Why can they not just live happily with everyone?'
He had seen war before he had understood what it meant.
He had seen bodies before he had known what hatred was.
Children who never woke up.
Parents who never returned.
Men who screamed as they bled.
For what?
Borders.
Pride.
Power.
Now this thing stood in front of him, half black, half plant, offering power.
But power for what?
Itachi's gaze sharpened slightly through the blood.
'He claims he can give me strength…'
The word lingered.
Strength.
He had chased strength his entire life, but never for the sake of domination, never for glory. He trained because he believed that only someone strong enough could stop conflict before it began.
But this creature, it was offering destruction disguised as salvation.
'Power to destroy the village?'
The thought felt wrong and twisted.
'I… I don't want destruction.'
His breathing steadied, the gasping slowly fading.
'I want peace.'
The word was fragile in his mind, but steady.
'I want Sasuke to grow up happily.'
The image surfaced without effort.
Sasuke running toward him, small hands clutching at his shirt, bright eyes full of admiration. There was no fear, no blood, just laughter.
His chest tightened.
'Why are they making things so difficult?'
Why did peace always require sacrifice?
Why did it always demand blood before it arrived?
'Is it because I am still weak?'
The question struck deeper than anything Zetsu had said.
If he had been stronger, would the clan have even considered rebellion?
Would Danzo have dared manipulate him?
Would Hiruzen have hesitated so often?
Would Ren have needed to step in front of his blade?
'What if I was strong?'
Not just stronger than his peers.
Stronger than everyone.
Stronger than the cycle itself.
His trembling stopped.
'Stronger than everyone…'
The thought no longer felt desperate.
It felt focused.
'Then… could I ensure peace?'
If no one could oppose him.
If no war could rise because he stood above it.
If no rebellion could ignite because he could extinguish it instantly.
'A happy future for Sasuke.'
His breathing became calm and slow and the shaking ceased entirely.
The internal chaos that had torn at his mind moments ago began aligning into something singular.
Resolve.
'If strength is needed…'
His fingers loosened from the soil.
'Then I will become the strongest.'
Not for hatred or revenge. But because the world seemed incapable of choosing peace on its own.
'Stronger than everyone.'
He lifted his head fully now.
Blood still dripped, but his gaze no longer wavered.
'Then I will make sure there is peace all over the world.'
His thoughts crystallized, not peace born from fear or manipulation. But peace enforced by someone who understood the cost of war.
'Then I can watch Sasuke grow up happily.'
No oppression.
No burden of clan expectations.
No blood on his small hands.
No war.
'Yes.'
His spine straightened.
'For that smile…'
The memory of Sasuke running toward him, arms open, face bright with trust, burned brighter than the pain behind his eyes.
'I have to be the strongest.'
The words were no longer a question.
They were a decision.
'I will be the strongest.'
He removed his hands from over his eyes. Blood streaked down his cheeks openly now. But his Mangekyo Sharingan shifted.
The shift wasn't violent. There was no surge of chakra, no cracking of air, no scream.
The familiar three-bladed Mangekyo in Itachi Uchiha's eye began to turn, slowly, almost imperceptibly, like a wheel finally aligning after years of strain.
The sharp edges softened.
The spinning stopped fighting itself.
A thin ring formed around the pattern.
Then delicate arcs bloomed between the blades, unfolding like petals opening at dusk. The red deepened, not brighter, not fiercer, but calmer, richer and settled.
For the first time since he had awakened the Mangekyo, the eye did not burn.
It did not ache.
It simply… breathed.
The power no longer felt like a burden tearing at his vision.
It felt complete.
It radiated stillness and in that stillness, for the first time in his life, there was no war behind his gaze.
~~~~~
{By now some of you might have understood what I am trying to do, however it is not yet fixed, the plans may change, situations might arise, anything can happen, but for now, it's a plan.}
{Also, don't you think that the other characters are having much more MC moments than Ren himself? Should I make him go through something?}