Konoha. Midnight.
The sky loomed dark over the Hokage Monument.
Four stone faces stared silently into the village. Below their chins, a lone figure crept across the rock ridge—fast, silent, deliberate.
Ryuki.
Bandages gone.
Eye uncovered.
He moved like a shadow—suppressing his chakra, sliding between patrol routes, until he reached the back of the Third's head.
A small fissure.
Invisible unless you were looking for it.
He placed his palm against the crack.
The seal on his chest glowed faintly. A spiral shimmered through his hand. The stone responded—
Click.
A slab slid away.
Revealing a tunnel.
Long. Cold. Unlit.
He stepped in.
And vanished.
Below.
The tunnel curved downward, spiraling like the eye itself. The deeper he went, the more he felt it.
The hum of ancient chakra.
The pressure.
The weight.
Until finally—
A door.
Unlike the others. This one wasn't stone. It was flesh.
Twisted. Pulsing. Covered in old Uchiha script.
He stared at it, breathing slow. The markings etched into the meat of the door looked like veins. Like roots.
Like the eye was trying to grow a body.
Suddenly—
A whisper.
"You shouldn't be here."
Ryuki spun.
Someone was standing in the tunnel behind him.
Black robe. White mask.
Danzo's Root.
But the chakra—
Wasn't Danzo's.
It felt like rot.
Decay.
Wrong.
The figure stepped forward, mask splitting open—revealing a grotesque mockery of a face, part flesh, part bark.
Zetsu.
Not the clone.
The original.
The real one.
"Back off," Ryuki warned.
Zetsu tilted his head. "Too late."
Above, in the Hokage's office, Sai stood before Tsunade again.
He didn't look calm this time.
"He's beneath the monument."
Tsunade shot up. "He what?!"
"I tried to stop him. He used the dojutsu. I lost three seconds."
Tsunade slammed her fist on the table. "Send Anbu now."
"But don't stop him," Sai said quietly.
She paused. "Why?"
"Because he's not the only one down there."
Back in the tunnel.
Zetsu moved fast.
A blur of darkness and white.
Ryuki activated the eye.
The world jerked—He moved left, time bent—Zetsu's strike missed.
Ryuki slammed a kunai into the creature's throat.
It didn't bleed.
It split—growing a second face.
"Fragment hunter," Zetsu hissed. "You're too early."
Ryuki's seal burned.
The door behind him opened without his touch.
Air pulled him in.
He let it.
Inside the chamber.
A spiral void.
Black water lapped at the edges.
Floating above the center—
A mirror.
Small. Round. Cracked.
But its surface… reflected two Ryukis.
One whole.
One fractured.
Zetsu snarled behind him. "That fragment isn't yours yet."
But Ryuki stepped forward.
Touched the mirror.
And the world shattered.
Mindscape.
He stood in a sea of memories.
Flashes of pain.
He saw himself younger.
Strapped to a table.
Doctors in the shadows.
A voice: "Split the dojutsu. Seal half. Watch the result."
A boy screaming.
Him.
Another boy across the room—calm, silent, identical.
Not him.
The fragment.
The real world shook.
Zetsu lunged.
Ryuki's eye flared—Two rings spun—He reversed the moment Zetsu blinked.
And stepped behind him.
Kunai at his neck.
"Wrong move."
He slit the creature's throat.
It hissed, but couldn't reform in time.
Zetsu's body burned into black sludge.
The chamber collapsed behind Ryuki.
But the mirror remained.
Now whole.
He touched it again.
It fused into his palm.
Outside, the mountain rumbled.
Anbu raced toward the source.
Sai stood still, watching.
Waiting.
Tsunade's voice echoed through his earpiece.
"Is he alive?"
Sai whispered, "He's stronger."
Far away.
The silver-haired boy jolted upright.
Eyes wide.
"That fragment was mine."
He stood in a storm.
Wind howling.
Five figures knelt before him.
He looked to the next location.
Valley of the End.
He clenched his fist.
"Send the Phantom. Kill him before he gets the next one."
End of Chapter 122.