Gunaseelan K
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Chapter 10: Black Zetsu Meets an Amazing Chess Piece in His Lonely Youth
🕑 Added 2025-09-11 05:32:24 +0000 UTC
“It’s really him…”
Black Zetsu’s entire being quivered with a mixture of nostalgia, unease, and a strange flicker of joy. Emiya Shihara’s reappearance in this era was something he could never have predicted. Although Shihara had ultimately betrayed him in the distant past, there had been a time—brief but vivid—when the two had stood side by side. Black Zetsu found himself remembering that time now, as though a fragment of warmth had survived within the endless cold of his millennia-long existence.
It was an odd, almost bittersweet feeling. In his heart, Shihara’s name conjured the same sensation as thinking about a brilliant companion encountered during the darkest part of one’s life—someone who appears like a beacon just as despair threatens to consume everything.
Whenever Black Zetsu thought back to Shihara, his mind returned inexorably to the first time they met.
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The First Encounter
At that time, Shihara was attempting to assassinate Indra. Indra still possessed only the three-tomoe Sharingan then, and Black Zetsu had assumed the attacker was just another reckless fool courting death. But within moments, his assumptions shattered.
The “small-time” assassin fought like a force of nature. He had somehow acquired remnants of the Sacred Tree and awakened a power that fused Wood Release with natural energy. His taijutsu and swordsmanship were frighteningly refined, and at his side a small slug familiar healed and shielded him. In an instant, Indra—the proud heir of the Sage of Six Paths—was driven to his knees, unable to raise his head against the onslaught.
Black Zetsu had been trailing Indra in secret, hoping to guide and protect him. Yet the mysterious attacker noticed his presence and, abandoning his assassination attempt, confronted the shadowy observer. In that moment, Black Zetsu’s fate entwined with Shihara’s.
From their first conversation, he learned of Shihara’s ambition: the destruction of the Shinobi Clan founded by the Sage of Six Paths.
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Shihara’s Origins
The Sage’s disciples had scattered far and wide. Some used chakra to aid their people; others twisted it for greed and slaughter. Shihara had been one of the victims of this new world. A single disciple, drunk on his own power, had slaughtered Shihara’s entire village to steal a few bottles of fine wine. Shihara survived only because he happened to leave early that day.
The massacre planted a seed of vengeance. Shihara prayed to the remnants of the Sacred Tree, and in return he gained Wood Release—a miracle and a curse. It gave him strength but also tied his fate to powers far beyond his understanding.
Black Zetsu, who had watched countless mortals rise and fall, at first dismissed Shihara as another disposable pawn. He assumed the man’s crusade would end in quick death. Yet Shihara roamed the world healing the sick, rescuing the injured, and spreading the philosophy of the medical ninja. Even as Black Zetsu plotted wars, Shihara was creating hope.
At that time, Black Zetsu was still confident. His first great scheme—to push Indra into challenging Ashura, hoping Indra would steal his brother’s power and awaken the Rinnegan—had failed spectacularly. Indra was defeated, and Black Zetsu retreated into despair.
But Shihara never stopped moving. He proclaimed that chakra was meant to ease suffering, not create it, and his reputation began to eclipse even the Sage himself. The people of that era had once worshiped the Sacred Tree; the Sage had shattered their faith. In contrast, Shihara, who shared their reverence for the tree and tirelessly saved lives, embodied the ideals they still longed for. Even the Sage and Ashura could not help admiring his conviction.
Black Zetsu recognized that same kindness—recognized it and, according to his own cynical rule that “even villains like good people,” found it useful. During those bleak years after his failed plan, he whispered constantly in Shihara’s ear, slandering the Sage, condemning the disciples who abused chakra. He revealed secret after secret, including the truth that the Sage claimed to be the source of chakra itself. In that age it was not difficult to confirm, but to Shihara it was a revelation.
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The Forbidden Study
After the Sage’s death, Shihara’s curiosity grew darker. He wished to study the Sage’s corpse to understand the source of chakra and perhaps find a way to reclaim it from those who misused it. He was not seeking power for himself; he was a medical ninja and saw corpses as the final teachers.
Shihara was the first to perform a full cadaver dissection, refining his medical skills to a level unknown before. He told Black Zetsu repeatedly that he wished to dispel prejudice against surgery and, after his own death, to have his body preserved for future learning.
Black Zetsu had located the Sage’s body but dared not approach it, fearing its lingering power would sense him. Shihara had no such fear. He stole the corpse and carried it to the Wet Bone Forest—a region of deadly acid and intense natural energy—to begin a long retreat.
Black Zetsu refused to follow him there. Yet when Shihara emerged, accompanied by a giant slug, he possessed a portion of the Sage’s power. He had successfully transplanted the Rinnegan. Black Zetsu could hardly believe his eyes. Through human research, Shihara had accomplished the unthinkable.
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The Near-Success
Before Black Zetsu could even instruct him further, Shihara acted on his own. With a single, devastating campaign, he annihilated the Ninja Clan founded by the Sage, slaughtering countless disciples and reducing their villages to rubble. He was only one step away from erasing the Sage’s legacy entirely.
It was the closest Black Zetsu had ever come to true victory. For once, revenge on the Sage seemed within reach—not only physical destruction of the clan but also a shattering of its spiritual authority.
But then Shihara encountered Ashura. While collecting remnants of the Sacred Tree, he found Ashura digging wells for villagers harmed by the tree’s destruction. Shihara saw in Ashura a genuinely kind man. After much persuasion, he entrusted his dream to him, believing Ashura would gain enough power to save the world from suffering.
To atone for his sins, Shihara even used the Samsara Creation Technique, bridging yin and yang to resurrect those he had killed. The technique’s power did not kill him outright—he still bore a fragment of the Sage’s strength—but he withdrew to the Wet Bone Forest to prepare his own funeral.
When he reappeared, there was only a half-dead crystal coffin. The slug carried it to Ashura, fulfilling Shihara’s final wish.
What a naïve man, Black Zetsu thought. He had believed Ashura’s promise. Yet Shihara’s near-success showed Black Zetsu another path: that human experimentation and medical knowledge might one day produce a weapon even the Sage could not anticipate.
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Legacy and Contradiction
Throughout the following millennia, Black Zetsu continued to provoke conflict between Indra and Ashura’s descendants while also spreading the idea of medical ninjutsu, hoping someone would replicate Shihara’s achievements. This duality confused even him. He was a murderer, the architect of endless wars, yet also a secret messenger of healing.
That the story of Emiya Shihara survived into the present era, while the Sage became a legend, was due largely to Black Zetsu’s own efforts. And still, despite all his manipulations, neither his methods nor Shihara’s had produced true success.
Perhaps that was why he missed Shihara so deeply. Among the countless pawns Black Zetsu had moved across the board of history, Shihara was the one who had come closest to changing the game. If only he had not believed in Ashura back then.
A dry, mocking laugh escaped Black Zetsu’s mouth. He pictured meeting Shihara again, imagined the regret and shame on the man’s face for having betrayed their shared dream.
“Now that you’ve seen ninjas fighting endlessly,” he muttered to the darkness, “will you regret believing Ashura’s foolish words?”
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The Memory Ends
This was Black Zetsu’s memory, not Shihara’s. It was the shadow’s own “white moonlight,” the cherished yet painful recollection of an almost-victory. In truth, the memory cut more deeply than he cared to admit.
Because in the end, Black Zetsu was still alone—an ancient conspirator staring across centuries at the one pawn who had truly mattered.
