Tenji looked at the half-black, half-white plant with narrowed eyes. He wanted to know how this was, and he wanted to know it now. What he felt from him was far too strange to be true. He was pissed and wouldn't take no for an answer. However, from what he could sense from the being in front of him, there was no malicious intent.
"I'm--"
"You can speak freely. No one will hear what you have to say. They're all under an illusion," Tenji said.
"Illusion? What are you talking about? How?"
"I have created my own illusion art. By combining Nature Energy with my Yin-chakra, I can basically bend all senses to my will and make anyone see, hear, smell, feel and sense what I want them to. So tell me, and don't you dare lie."
"I... am Kaguya's child."
"What?!" Tenji shouted.
"I am Kaguya's child, but as much as she is my mother and I am her will, I see myself as your son as well."
Tenji looked at him, then nodded for him to continue his tale.
"Mother created me, just before she was sealed, using the last bit of her chakra she had left. And since then, I have recorded everything that happened while Mother was gone... and moulded it as well."
"How? I heard some things about what happened, from the Toad of Mount Myoboku, but I'm uncertain how much of it was true."
"I assume they fed you a half-truth. I wasn't aware that you were approached. Had I known that you were back Fa-... I mean, Tenji, I would have rushed to find you right away. Mother's love for you trumped anything she cared about herself, and I couldn't have handled it if something had happened to you."
"Tell me how things are different from what the Toad told me."
"What exactly has he told you?" Zetsu asked.
Tenji went on to repeat what he heard from Gamamaru and what he found out over the course of his new life. Zetsu nodded his head, but then got to it.
"I am not surprised to hear that you have been fed the mere basics of it. They told you almost everything, but left out important details. I shall fill the holes you may still have. The most important thing is that the tale of shinobi is the tale of restoring Mother. I knew that it was possible to restore Mother when taking into account Hagaromo's power. He was the one with the power of the Rinnegan, so he was also capable of unsealing Mother. But that took time.
And when he finally settled and had two sons, I was ecstatic. I waited, observed and looked for an opportunity to strike. Indra was the perfect individual to do so, as he had his father's eyes. The Dojutsu of the Sharingan was his, and with it, he had inherited all the talent. Indra's love for his brother and family was big and strong. It wouldn't have been possible to do anything at the start and still have him follow my plan. So, again, I had to wait.
I was aware of the power and curse of the Sharingan and thought about using... well, using their love to turn them."
Zetsu stopped for a moment and stole a glance at Tenji. He wasn't sure how his 'father' would react to this news. Since he knew that Tenji wasn't known for his bloodlustedness, but he was known to do what was necessary when it came to Kaguya and not shy away from getting his hands as dirty as they could get. That's why he told him the full truth. When he didn't get a reaction, Zetsu continued.
"The power of the Sharingan was unlocked through pure talent alone, if one had an idea on how to circulate their chakra correctly and target the optic cells to stimulate the awakening of the Sharingan, OR through emotional stress. Indra had inherited much of your talent, Tenji, and it was clear he would go far, but he couldn't. Not quite. I approached Indra alone periodically, goading him with praise and curiosity about his true potential, even going so far as to say he could rival, if not surpass, your son Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths himself. When Hagoromo later named his younger son, Asura, as the new leader of Ninshū, I suggested that Indra go to war with his younger brother.
I was the one to do that. I told him about what Hagoromo and Hamura had done to Mother and that it wasn't right. I told him that he could undo this and earn his rightful place at Mother's side. But, as it turned out, Hagoromo was a sentimental fool and gave all his power to Asura, who in turn grew powerful enough to rival and even overpower Indra. But no matter what, Indra couldn't defeat Asura and his followers. It got to the point that he even stopped listening to me and only saw the war and death of Asura as his purpose.
I thought it wouldn't work, then had the idea of using Indra's descendants, the Uchiha Clan, to be the cast of my tale, by meddling with and altering that rubbish Hagoromo taught, just a bit. I took it upon myself to rewrite some of Hagoromo's Stone Tablet. I added that Infinite Tsukuyomi was the path to save the Uchiha and hoped that all of them would play their parts. And I am certain that I have never been as close as I am now.
Indra and the Uchiha, Asura and the Senju... They fought each other, setting a pattern of power-seeking. Time after time, I'd approach the reincarnate in each clan to attempt Rinnegan manifestation, but it always ended in failure until now. When the reincarnates became Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, I came to believe and now know that Madara could achieve it. And as you see right there... he did."
Tenji looked at Nagato and understood.
"So the Rinnegan belongs to the true Madara who is now dead."
"That's right. Initially, I thought my plan had failed again when Hashirama killed Madara. Madara's corpse was like a treasure trove to other shinobi. Tobirama, who'd been studying the mysteries of the Sharingan, stopped short of destroying Madara's body and hid it deep within Konoha's mountains instead. But Madara hadn't been a fool. You can invoke a time-delay spell in one's eye using the Mangekyo Sharingan. He had installed the Izanagi in his right eye. At the cost of his right eye, he rewrote reality and returned to life.
he then passed off a shadow doppelganger as his corpse. Then he vomited up the piece of flesh he bit off Hashirama, transplanted it onto his wound opening, and finally awakened the Rinnegan and summoned the Gedo Statue. He then cultured Hashirama's flesh using the statue in an attempt to prolong his life further. The White Zetsu seemed to be an ideal incidental byproduct of that, but they actually were people Mother put under the Infinite Tsukuyomi in the past, who she had prepared when they returned, and I extracted from the statue and made them look like Madara wanted.
I aligned myself with the Uchiha underground and made it seem as if I had been born of Madara. That's where Obito comes in, the child you knocked out."
"So his name is Obito. Did he unlock that phase-through ability thanks to his Sharingan?" Tenji asked.
"Yes. That space-time ability of his is a very powerful jutsu that will be useful to us. But his ignorance and the manipulation Madara did with him will serve us more than his jutsu."
Tenji took a deep breath and looked to the side. That was a lot to take in, but he was content with finally getting the full story. Or so he thought. Something came to mind.
"Tell me about me. How did I survive?" he asked.
"You didn't survive in the actual sense. You died that day, fighting the armies of the Land of That and your own soldiers. Mother was unwilling to let you go, though. Because she had been pregnant at the time, using her chakra wouldn't have been the best choice to bring you back to life right away, but she did something else. She created a special place for you in the Divine Tree. She placed you there and fed you with the Divine Tree's chakra and her own, working to introduce chakra into your body and slowly get you back."
"Then why did it take so long?" Tenji asked.
"Because of the betrayal of Hagoromo and Hamura. During the fight, Mother had to absorb the Divine Tree. But you had to be protected and were placed deep underground in a protective cocoon of Divine Tree wood. Thanks to that, the process Mother had started continued, but at a much slower pace. I didn't find you when I was created, since Hagoromo was present, and you had basically become one with nature at that point. You seemed to have disappeared entirely.
All I know is that you must have continued to absorb Mother's chakra mixed with Nature Energy, because you have a Sage Body so pure that it rivals Mother herself. She wanted to give you so much more, but was stopped, and you were forgotten. I am deeply regretful for not continuing to look for you, but the dimension of the fight Mother had with her sons made it seem as though everything was destroyed."
So the reason why Tenji didn't have the same chakra pathway and tenketsu points as everyone else was that Kaguya tried to create them while he was already a grown man. They were, in a sense, artificial, but unexpectedly gave Tenji an advantage. Black Zetsu was nervous, seeing that Tenji said nothing. He had revealed everything, told him that he was responsible for a millennia of war and discord, but he didn't care. Mother was all that mattered now, and he knew that Tenji felt the same way. Still, it was hard for him to say those things and admit to them.
However, all his worries melted away when he felt Tenji's hand on his head.
"You went through a lot... son."
"..."
Black Zetsu's eyes lit up.
"We don't have time for celebrations, however. Now that we have the tools we need, I will create a way to get Kaguya back. And we may not even need your plan for that. On the other hand, I don't want to end things just yet. Your plans, as one-dimensional as they were, have merit."
"What do you have in mind?" Zetsu asked.
"We will rebuild our Kingdom. I gave my life to save Kaguya and our sons. And as it turned out, my way of going about things was wrong. Had I not been so inexperienced in terms of love, I might have seen the betrayal coming, but I didn't. Now, things are different since Hagoromo introduced Ninshu. I used to be the most skilled fighter around, which, combined with my other talents, allowed me to rule the Land of Ancestors well. Now, I am not the strongest anymore, and if I want to recreate our Kingdom, I need to become the strongest. And then there are the Otsutsuki as well..."
"The Otsutsuki? Are they coming soon?" Zetsu asked.
"I don't know. Kaguya didn't know that either, but no matter what, they will arrive at some point, and we need to be ready for them."
"So what are our plans now? Shall we still go through with the Eye on the Moon Plan?"
"Not exactly. We will move forward with your idea and use the Akatsuki to build our first group of followers. We will go through the initial parts of the plan and collect the Tailed Beasts. Kaguya shall have her chakra back for the most part, and to free her, the Ten Tails is needed."
"I see. And from where shall we do this?"
"Amegakure."
"Amegakure? And what about Hanzo the Salamander?" Zetsu asked.
"I'll take care of Hanzo. It's time for me to meet an old friend. Amegakure will be our base of operations. From there, we will gradually increase our power and influence. The smaller nations are our first targets, since they will be the most susceptible to change."
"You wish to take them over?"
"Completely. Take them over and integrate them."
"This will most likely not be accepted by the 5 big nations, though. And will lead to another war."
"Right now, they have other problems. This war will give us time to settle, and after we gain enough traction, no one will be able to stop us. And once Kaguya is freed... we will be set."
"What do you want me to do?" Zetsu asked.
"Tell me all that you know about the world. Chakra, strong shinobi, the politics, geography and anything that could be of interest."
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As I said, this is not like other Naruto fanfics.