CHAPTER 220: THE DINING ROOM IS ALIVE, AND I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S ARMED

The seal pulsed again, and Mito’s voice returned, it was still dignified but just a bit colder now.

"If you are hearing this message in this room, it seems one of my predictions has come true... that there are no more elders who could guide you in the Senju clan."

Ren’s brows rose slightly. ’So it was a prediction, huh.’

"If it is Monkey and his lover then I hope you remember what you did to your teacher’s clan. He was the man who raised you more than either of your parents ever did, and yet you still let the situation reach this point. You should ask yourselves, honestly, if your teacher would be proud of you."

’Oof. That’s gonna leave a mark.’

He had to admit, whoever this recording was aimed at, Mito hadn’t bothered wrapping it in any niceties. It was straight for the throat. That, more than anything else, made it feel rea and personal. She wasn’t just leaving information behind; this was a message sharpened into a knife, meant to wound.

"If it is a Senju child... oh well. Now you know. That Monkey and his lover were behind the demise and the current state of your clan."

Ren’s expression didn’t change much at that as he continued to listen.

"I am not telling you this for the sake of revenge. To be honest, I don’t really care that the clan was finished. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the entire village were destroyed in the future."

Ren thought, ’...Now that’s an interesting line. She said it like she didn’t hope for it, but she wouldn’t be too broken up if it happened either.’

"What I am about to tell you should be a secret of this world. This is something passed down through the ages in the Uzumaki clan and I was only able to confirm it after the death of my husband."

’Okay,’ Ren thought, focus narrowing. ’Here it comes. She really is about to drop something big.’

"Since ancient times, when the Uzumaki clan was first established, there have been several talented individuals born in our bloodline, which is to be expected of my great clan, of course. But among those talents, there were a rare few who were especially gifted in a particular sensory technique, the Mind’s Eye of Kagura."

"These individuals, over generations, noticed something strange. A constant, uniform chakra signature. Hidden so deep in the world it couldn’t be felt normally. But it was there. Watching, always watching. And this presence had a fixed pattern, it was monitoring four clans specifically, the Uzumaki, the Senju, the Uchiha, and the Hyuga."

He paused slightly, not because he was surprised by the information but because he already knew who she was talking about, Zetsu.

"Because of the fractured relationships between the clans at the time, we believed it was an external enemy. But every time war or conflict erupted between us, it always came down to the same unseen hand filled with subtle, persistent manipulations keeping the four from ever uniting."

A long silence followed before her voice returned, it was heavier now, edged with sorrow.

"This theory... this suspicion... became certainty when I was made the jinchūriki of the Nine Tails. My sensory abilities expanded, enhanced by the power of the beast inside me. I told Hashirama about my suspicion, that someone, or something, had tried to destroy the relationship between him and his co-wife."

Ren raised a brow again. ’Co-wife?’

He filed that away for later.

"Hashirama was furious. Not at the idea that someone dared interfere with what he believed was the bridge between peace and chaos but because someone dared to plot against him and my co-wife. So we both searched. I, using the Nine Tails. He, using Sage Mode."

"Eventually we found it"

Ren’s breath paused slightly.

She didn’t say "him."

She said it. That means his guess was right and that zetsu had indeed been found already.

"Hashirama rushed to that location immediately. Injured still from his battle with Madara, he went in alone. He believed, naively, perhaps that this was something he could end in one move. However, he never returned."

The words were spoken plainly. No trembling, no dramatic pause. It was spoken like it was just a fact.

"I followed soon after. But by the time I reached him... he was dead. The only thing left was his blood, the trees he created, madara’s bodies lying limp at the side and the thing that stood in the center... watching me."

Ren swallowed once, jaw tightening. His gaze didn’t leave the seal.

"I fought it. I don’t know if I won. I only know that I was able to place a seal, one that required a portion of my remaining life. The cost was heavy, but with it, I bound that creature’s ability to step foot within the village ever again."

"Tobirama was the only one I told. He was livid, of course. But he was also Tobirama... and that meant he understood reality better than anyone. We could not win. Not yet. And so we let it rest and prepare for the future."

Ren sat in silence, his arms folded, eyes fixed on the seal in front of him.

This was a lot, well no really, but still this was kind of huge. He’d just had one of the greatest historical mysteries of his world answered like it was just some family gossip.

"How did Hashirama die?" People had debated it endlessly, illness, battlefield injury, poisoning, some vague tragic fate. But no, turns out it was just Hashirama doing what he did best.

Running headfirst into danger because someone might be hurting someone he loved.

Ren exhaled sharply, not in disbelief, but in some weird sense of agreement.

’Yeah... if he really believed something was pulling strings behind the scenes, he wouldn’t sit still. No chance. And Madara was still alive at that time, however barely, and Zetsu got to him and controlling him, that would explain it.’

The First Hokage, cut down by a possessed Madara controlled by a primordial parasite. If it weren’t for the tone of the message, he might’ve thought it was fanfiction.

But there was no mistaking the weight behind those words.

’She wasn’t kidding... if this got out publicly, it would flip the entire shinobi world upside down.’

And he meant it. If people knew why the founding clans fell. If they realized the Uchiha-Senju conflict was manufactured, the clan system poisoned, the wars deliberately stoked.

You’d see every single village rushing headfirst into finding that thing.

He shook the thought away. That wasn’t his job. Not right now.

The message continued in Mito’s ever-shifting voice, now sharper, older, more tired.

"After some time, Tobirama also died... and though I thought of doing something but Monkey had just taken reign, and his position wasn’t stable, so I had to help that ungrateful whelp."

Ren raised an eyebrow. ’Okay, she really didn’t like Hiruzen, huh.’

"Working with him also made me realize... he’s a coward. Even if he knew the truth, he’d never act on it. He was too afraid of disturbing the so-called peace. I could only stay silent."

Ren could almost hear her scowling through the seal.

"Things didn’t end there. After Kushina, my brother’s granddaughter, came to the village to become the Nine Tails’ host, I sensed another disturbance. It wasn’t the black one... it was white beings."

Ren’s spine straightened a little.

"The chakra... it was familiar. I recognized it instantly. I tracked them without issue, but instead of acting, I watched. They were observing Kushina and the Uchiha heiress."

Ren narrowed his eyes slightly. ’So even that far back, they were watching Kushina... and Mikoto?’

"I wanted to act... but their numbers were too high. If even one escaped, and the black one got wind that I was active again he might’ve done something irreversible. So I passed the burden..

I informed Kushina. And her little lover boy, since it was obvious at a glance that he’d become Hokage someday."

Ren smirked slightly. ’She really called Minato "Kushina’s little lover boy."’

"Surprisingly, that boy turned out to be quite capable. He’d already learned that space jutsu I helped Tobirama develop, along with it’s secondary technique, Spatial sensing."

"That technique worked exceptionally well against those white things. It could track them without even alerting them in the slightest. Once I confirmed that, I finally let go. And soon after... I died."

The spatial sensing able to sense Zetsu wasn’t a big surprise to Ren, he himself was capable of doing the same so it wasn’t a big deal.

Mito’s voice dimmed for a moment, and for once, there was actual silence. Then it returned and became dry again.

"Though before I died, I still wasn’t entirely sure they’d succeed. So I made this recording... to ensure someone knew. If they died young, without passing it on, then at least you, whoever you are, would carry the burden next."

Ren exhaled.

So it wasn’t just a family keepsake. This room, this seal, this message, it was the safety net. The final contingency.

Then Mito’s voice returned again, calm and measured.

"One more thing. The seal I placed on that thing... it only works for the black one. And only if there’s Uzumaki blood within the village borders. If there are no living Uzumaki left, you better go find one. For safety’s sake."

Ren nodded to himself. ’Alright, good to know.’ He mentally checked that off as Naruto was still alive, meaning the seal was probably still active.

But just as he relaxed, "Ah, one last thing."

Ren’s body tensed slightly as a clicking sound echoed from above.

CRACK. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Dozens of scrolls began pouring down from the ceiling like a hailstorm.

He jumped back as a stack hit the table where he’d been sitting. Scrolls rolled across the floor in all directions.

Finally, after the chaos settled, her voice spoke again with a casual tone.

"These are a few histories and fuinjutsu scrolls I found or wrote when I was alive. You can read them if you want."

Ren stood there, a scroll lodged in the fold of his collar. He flicked it off like a bug.

’...Of course. Toss in a library at the end. Why not.’

He waited another thirty seconds just in case she had one more "last thing." When nothing happened, he exhaled in relief.

"...She finally shut up."

But his eyes drifted to the scrolls anyway.

Ren crouched low over the piles of scrolls and took a cursory glance through them, his fingers flipping past seals and notes without really reading yet. His mind, meanwhile, was still circling Mito’s message.

’For anyone else, this would’ve been some world-shaking revelation but for me it was not really huge but she didn’t know the one listening would be someone from another world.’

He already knew about Zetsu. The manipulation of the clans, the hidden war behind the wars, the puppet master in the shadows, none of that surprised him. It was valuable, sure, but not new.

’The only things that actually helped were learning how Hashirama died, confirming that the black one can’t enter Konoha... and these scrolls.’

He glanced at the stacks surrounding him again. Yeah. This was the real prize.

He wasn’t exactly a history nerd, so the scrolls that started with "Era of Warring States" and "Treatise on Senju Clan Rituals" were shoved into his belt without ceremony.

But the fuinjutsu scrolls were handled like glass.

He neatly laid them out, sorting them by topic. Chakra flow mapping, dual-node stabilizers, linked seal relays, time-delay matrices.

And most important of all, principles, actual notes. Not just pre-written sealing arrays to copy and paste into the battlefield. These were thought processes, the logic of fuinjutsu itself. And more than one scroll had Mito’s notes in the margins.

"This is what I need," he murmured.

Level 6 arrays weren’t about memorizing formulas anymore. They were about invention, crafting new functions from foundational understanding. It wasn’t like level 4, where you could brute force your way forward with repetition and chakra control. It wasn’t even like level 5, where deeper theory and control gave access to more refined patterns.

Level 6... was artistry. Only those who truly understood how fuinjutsu behaved under pressure, time, and variation could make it here.

Although he had the talent, he didn’t have the base to go into deeper study, but these scrolls would solve that problem.

He sorted them quickly, after all this was his new treasure trove. He neatly packed and sealed them into his personal storage scroll. He’d be chewing on these for months.

Then he glanced at the one last scroll left.

It was left off to the side because unlike the others, it was locked behind a multilayered seal that was a triple-lock fuinjutsu seal for locking the scrolls.

"Alright," he muttered. "What secrets are you hiding?"

It took him half an hour to crack it open. The lock wasn’t hard, just tedious. Some Uzumaki fail-safes, a chakra sink trap, and one mildly insulting seal that kept calling him "incompetent brat" every time he made a wrong move.

But eventually, the scroll unfurled.

He read the first line. Then the second. And then his body stiffened. His eyes went wide.

A second later he was gone with a flicker, then again and again.

He didn’t stop until he’d shot through half the compound, blazing past old Yoshida and the gathered elders, who barely had time to turn their heads before Ren vanished again.

He landed high atop one of the oldest trees in the estate, the thick canopy swaying slightly beneath his weight.

From here, he could see it all.

The house, the courtyard, the vines. The branches woven into the structure. The foundation, the supports, the old moss-covered walls.

He looked at the scroll again.

Then back at the compound.

Then the scroll again.

His mouth opened slowly, breath catching in his throat as he then spoke in disbelief.

"This. This is. This is a fucking Gundam!"

~~~~~

{Well, who would’ve thought that the Uzumaki would be able to locate the sad mama’s boy who’s been plotting for centuries.}

{Also, the thing about BLACK Zetsu not being able to enter Konoha is just my thought, it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the canon, however, the reason behind this was that I had to show that Mito was a badass. Also, this isn’t entirely false either, because while we have seen BLACK Zetsu roaming around the land of fire he was never inside the leaf village itself. The WHITE Zetsu was shown inside, yes, but not BLACK one.

I’ll stop with the black and white because if I continue to write my thoughts would spiral and I would end up writing something, well, not so good.}

{Also, GUNDAM!}

{If you want, you can support me on pat-reon}

{ h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n }

{You know what else}

{280 Stones = Extra Chapter}

{STONES!!!!}