Escaping the Mist Ninja starts with backstabbing your teacher.

Chapter 287 I can help you revive Princess Kaguya

The firelight on the rock wall flickered slightly, as if it had been pushed by something extremely light from the darkness.

It's finally here.

He walked very slowly, his head and face half-covered by two pitcher plant-like leaves, the black and white colors standing out sharply in the dim light.

The white Zetsu's half-face had a half-smile, while the black Zetsu's half-face was shrouded in deeper shadows.

Only the yellow eye was slowly turning, like a lamp wick floating in the darkness.

He first looked at Payne, whose eyes were still closed, as if he hadn't noticed his arrival.

There was no bowing, only a slight nod, and a soft, smooth voice came from Bai Jue's side: "What did you call me for?"

Black Zetsu didn't speak, but his yellow eyes had already passed over Konan and landed on Izumi.

Izumi was still sitting on the stone platform, one leg bent, elbow resting on his knee, watching with amusement.

He looked back, his gaze unwavering, even flashing a smile before turning to Payne: "Payne, may I speak with Zetsu alone for a moment?"

Konan raised an eyebrow very slightly, and Pain finally opened his eyes, his Rinnegan glowing a very faint purple in the darkness.

He looked at Izumi River, yet seemed not to see anything at all. After a couple of breaths, he nodded slightly.

He turned and walked into the shadows behind him. Konan glanced at Izumi, then at Zetsu, and finally followed Pain away.

In the center of the vast cave, only the two of them remained in the blink of an eye.

Izumikawa then slowly stood up and stopped playing with the silver ball.

He took two steps forward and stopped three steps away from Jue.

His gaze was fixed on Black Zetsu's yellow eye, as if he wanted to see all the way down to it.

The wind in the cave grew even softer, so soft that you could hear the faint sound of flames licking the stone walls.

"It's definitely easier to ask you to come than to invite you," Izumi said, his tone neither too light nor too heavy, as if he were exchanging pleasantries with someone he had met many times.

He tilted his head slightly, his white hair slipping down his shoulder, revealing his eyes that seemed to be smiling but weren't.

"What should I call you? Jue? Or some other name?"

Black Zetsu's yellow eyes remained motionless, but White Zetsu uttered a sound of "Misunderstanding".

They seemed surprised by Izumi's words, yet also as if they had been waiting to see the show.

Black Zetsu didn't speak, but just quietly looked at Izumi, as if waiting for him to slowly utter what he really wanted to say.

Izumikawa wasn't in a hurry. He knew what this "pitcher plant" standing in front of him was.

He knew better than anyone that this seemingly paralyzed black mass was the thing most adept at waiting and lying throughout the ages.

Tonight, he wanted to hear with his own ears how it told its first lie.

Instead of answering, Izumikawa raised a finger.

He gently tapped the left half of Jue's swaying white face.

"However, let's not let them hear this part from here on out, what do you think?"

Bai Jue, his eyes half-open as if just woken from a nap, exclaimed "Wrong!" in an exaggerated manner.

She tilted her head and leaned closer to Izumi River: "What, can't even I listen? I'm just myself."

He grinned, and the Venus flytrap's leaves trembled as if he were playing a prank.

Black Zetsu ignored White Zetsu's nonsense; his yellow eye merely twitched.

The next instant, the entire figure seemed to be covered by a surge of darkness from within.

Before the white Zetsu's playful expression could fully fade, it was completely swallowed up by the blackness.

In the end, only a dark silhouette half-floating in the shadows and a serene yellow eye remained.

The cave suddenly seemed a bit colder.

"It's ready now," Black Zetsu said, his voice still hoarse and low.

However, it lacked the frivolity of White Zetsu's speech, and instead possessed a sense of oppression that seeped from the deepest depths of the earth.

"What do you want from me?"

Izumi withdrew his finger from mid-air, and the casual smile on his face slowly faded.

He looked at the black mass before him, now completely stripped of its disguise, as if he were watching something that had been hidden for too long finally reveal itself under the light.

"That's more like it," Izumi said, his voice low but clear. "What I'm about to discuss shouldn't be overheard by that half who only knows how to joke."

"Because he'll just treat our conversation as idle gossip to pass the time in a few days."

"But you are different, after all, you have waited for a thousand years."

Black Zetsu's yellow eyes seemed to sink into an even deeper darkness.

He didn't make a sound or move, but his silhouette was like a dark shadow.

For the first time, he showed a change similar to "sinking" in front of Izumi.

Like a seemingly calm pool of water, the bottom suddenly begins to churn.

A thousand-year wait —

This wasn't a test; it was a roll call. Black Zetsu thought of many things in that instant.

He has met too many people, from the Sage of Six Paths to Madara Uchiha, and has witnessed everything.

All those who possess extraordinary talent have left their mark on the riverbed of time, yet none have truly seen through their entirety.

How much does Izumikawa know? Where did he hear it from? From some unknown intelligence network?

Or did they reverse-engineer something from their research on the Rinnegan, Sharingan, and Tailed Beast Chakra?

No, he couldn't possibly know too much!

Perhaps we've only guessed one layer: the legend of the Ten-Tails, the Rinnegan, and Kaguya.

No one knows Black Zetsu's true identity, and no one knows that he is waiting for his mother.

Black Zetsu remained silent, simply raising his yellow eye to meet Izumi's gaze directly.

Like a snake that has been coiled in the dark for a thousand years, even when its tail is stepped on, it still refuses to flick its tongue.

He couldn't panic; even a pause or hesitation in replying would become a weakness in the other party's eyes.

Seeing his silence, the slight smile on Izumi's lips returned.

Instead of circling around, he slowly took a step forward, his voice like the chill seeping from the rock face.

Every word seemed to carry a hook: "Ten-tailed?"

He paused for a moment: "The Rinnegan?"

He paused again: "The moon?"

Finally, after a longer pause: "Seal."

Then he seemed to finally pronounce a name that everyone had forgotten for too long.

The sound was so soft, as if afraid of disturbing something deep underground.

Princess Kaguya.

The fire inside the cave was all shrunk down by these three words.

Black Zetsu remained motionless, but the darkness around him suddenly froze unnaturally for a moment.

Even the half of the Venus flytrap leaf belonging to the White Zetsu seemed to have lost all its vitality, drooping limply, no longer comical at all.

Black Zetsu looked at Izumi, and a surge of killing intent welled up in his heart like water under thin ice, slow but sharp.

This is no longer "guessing what".

A person who can say these words in their entirety and in this order is definitely not just someone who is listening to stories.

he knows!

Even without knowing everything, I was already standing in front of that door.

For the first time, Black Zetsu felt that his disguise was as light as a layer of dust that would crumble at the slightest touch in the face of these words.

But he still didn't speak first; he couldn't admit anything.

To admit it is tantamount to handing over the deepest knife handle in a thousand years to someone else.

So Black Zetsu simply lowered his voice to the lowest possible level, as if squeezing it out little by little from a depth of several miles underground.

"Who exactly are you?" he asked.

Izumi looked at him, and the nonchalance on his face finally vanished, leaving only an extremely cold silence, darker than the cave itself.

He didn't answer, but let those three words continue to echo softly between them.

Like a pebble thrown into a deep well, it takes a very long time to finally touch some untouchable bottom.

Izumikawa finally gave a faint smile and continued, "It seems you'll have plenty of time to listen to me now."

Something extremely cold seemed to be slowly twitching in Black Zetsu's mind.

He is not someone who panics easily.

Even when facing Madara Uchiha, he always kept his deepest card hidden.

But at this moment, when the white-haired man in front of me uttered words like "Obito," "Uchiha Madara," and "plan," one by one...

For the first time, Black Zetsu felt that his millennia-long habit of silence had been pried open by a single, extremely soft remark.

run away?

This thought surfaced from the depths of Black Zetsu's consciousness almost the instant Izumi finished speaking.

Abandon the entire plan, abandon Obito, abandon this game that has been laid out for hundreds of years.

They retreated back into the darkness where no one could find them, waiting to slowly emerge again after Izumi's death.

This is what Black Zetsu excels at. He has survived to this day by waiting, and he can turn "waiting" into "escape" at any time.

He doesn't need to confront this person directly; he just needs to disappear.

He disappeared for decades, centuries, until the ninja world forgot the name "Taketori Izumi" and then returned here.

By then, the plan will still be there, the moon will still be there, and Mother will still be there.

Everything is just a little delayed. He can wait.

He has waited for thousands of years, so what difference a few decades or centuries make?

Black Zetsu's yellow eyes flickered very slightly, and his body began to slide backward imperceptibly.

Like a pool of ink driven by a CD player, it is slowly flowing towards the deepest shadow beneath the rock face.

Once he sinks in, no one in the ninja world will be able to catch him.

"Don't rush off." Izumi's voice suddenly rang out.

It was neither too light nor too heavy, but like a nail, it pierced through his backward trajectory.

"Even if you burrow back underground, something will always pull you out."

"You've waited so long, you're not going to give up now, are you?"

He smiled slightly, a very faint smile, and with just a few simple words, he kept him there.

"I can help you revive Princess Kaguya."

Black Jue stopped. His figure, which was already half-submerged in the stone wall, was suddenly pressed down and frozen in place as if by something.

That sentence was too soft, as soft as a few words that slipped in unintentionally from the wind outside the cave.

But it was precisely because it was so light that it pierced through the shell that Hei Jue had built over a thousand years, just like a needle.

He slowly rose again from the shadows, his yellow eyes fixed on Izumi.

There was doubt, fear, and an extremely secret tremor that even he himself could hardly suppress.

"What did you say?" Black Zetsu whispered.

Izumi met his gaze, her eyes as calm as if she were looking down at a snake that had finally stopped moving: "I said, I can help you."

"It's not about helping Obito, it's not about helping Akatsuki, it's not about helping anyone in this ninja world, it's about helping you revive Kaguya."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "If you're still willing to listen, we have a lot to talk about."

Black Zetsu still didn't get close, but his yellow eyes had been burning on Izumi for too long, as if trying to burn an answer out of that face.

He knew he had missed the best opportunity to escape.

Leaving now would only mean cutting the last rope that might be stretched towards him. So he did not retreat.

He stood there silently as darkness receded, like a half-tamed monster slowly retracting its fangs.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice low and gentle, like water seeping from a crack in the rock. "Or rather, what do you want?"

Black Zetsu knew that someone who knew too much yet was still willing to help him revive his mother must have something in mind.

Moreover, what they ask for will never be small.

Since Izumi was able to say these things, he wouldn't be satisfied with just gold, silver, land, and ninjutsu.

They wouldn't even be satisfied with the reward offered by any ninja village in the world.

He had seen all sorts of people who craved power, and he had seen all sorts of people who wanted authority, but Izumi was different.

What this white-haired man wants is probably the thing he least wants to give, and the thing he least wants to give.

Izumi didn't answer immediately; he looked at Kuro Zetsu for a while.

Then he took a small half-step forward, as if to cross the invisible boundary between them.

The light from the brazier cast his long, still shadow on the stone wall, a stark contrast to the dark silhouette of the black figure that had completely blended into the shadows.

"I want Obito's Mangekyou Sharingan." Izumi's voice was low, but extremely clear.

Black Zetsu's yellow eyes narrowed slightly; he hadn't expected Izumi to directly ask Obito for help.

Obito is currently the closest pawn to the Ten-Tails plan.

His Kamui Sharingan is a crucial part of this plan.

If Obito were to give his right eye to Izumi, he might survive, but he would never be whole again.

For Black Zetsu, this cost is far more troublesome than losing one or two ninja villages.

"Anything else?" Black Zetsu didn't say "That's impossible," but continued to ask.

He knew that Izumi hadn't finished speaking; the truly important conditions were yet to come.

Sure enough, Izumi's lips curled up very slightly before the smile disappeared.

His expression suddenly calmed down in the dim firelight.

It's like revealing a secret that has been suppressed for a long time and is finally willing to see the light of day.

"There's one more thing," he said slowly, his gaze falling on Black Jue, as light as if trying to pierce through the millennia-old darkness.

"You probably don't know why Princess Kaguya created these White Zetsu, do you?"

The darkness surrounding Black Zetsu suddenly froze. He knew that White Zetsu were soldiers created from humans before his mother was sealed away, having been peeled from the Divine Tree.

He always thought that the White Zetsu were there to fight against the Sage of Six Paths, and to gather intelligence and maintain his plans during the years his mother was sealed away.

But Izumi said, "You probably don't know."

These words sent a chill down Black Zetsu's spine, as if a knife had suddenly pierced his supposedly impregnable understanding from a great distance.

"White Zetsu—what is it for?" Black Zetsu didn't realize that his voice was much softer than before.

Izumikawa didn't reveal the answer immediately. He walked to the nearest brazier.

Looking down at the flickering flames inside, he paused for a few moments before saying, "To defend against enemies from the stars."

"Otsutsuki clan, your mother was not a native of this world; she came from beyond the heavens."

"She created White Zetsu not to fight against humans, nor to protect herself from her two sons."

"She is preparing for a war. A war from the stars that has yet to begin."

He raised his head, his dark eyes reflecting the firelight, as if burning with something extremely distant and cold: "So, I want you to stand with me. Not to fight the Five Great Nations, nor for the Ten-Tails."

"It's for the war that your mother will still have to face after the lockdown is lifted."

"By then, she will need more than just White Zetsu; she will need something that can resist the terrifying power from the stars."

Black Zetsu remained silent for a long time, unsure whether he should believe it or not.

But what Izumikawa revealed was even more profound and distant than the secret he had kept hidden for a thousand years.

If this is a lie, then it is a lie so great that even Black Zetsu cannot expose it for a while.

If this is true, then he can no longer simply be the one waiting in his mother's shadow.

He suddenly felt that in front of this person, he was like a stone whose thousand layers of shell were being peeled off.

Even the innermost core is about to be seen by the other party.

The cave was so quiet that the only sound was the faint licking of flames through the air.

Black Zetsu remained silent for a long time, but the light in his yellow eyes trembled slightly, as if blown by the wind.