While Izayoi and the Hyuga sisters were busy capturing beautiful moments in photos, elsewhere…
In the Rain Village – where the rain poured in torrents – inside a steel-clad building, a figure was speaking with a colorful, prismatic "thought projection."
"Sasori, is there something you need?"
"Leader, have you been to the Land of Rivers recently? Or rather, aside from your other five Paths of Pain, do you have another body?"
"Why do you ask?" Tendo Pain asked flatly.
"Answer me."
"I do not."
"All right. I believe you."
Sasori nodded grimly. "Deidara and I ran into someone in the Land of Rivers. He could summon a meteor, and he used the same repulsive and attractive forces as you."
Hearing that, Tendo Pain's expression finally shifted a bit. "Who is he?"
"No idea," Sasori replied. "He wore a black cloak with white hair and a pure-white mask with no eye holes – and his sensory range was off the charts."
"He suddenly came for us, summoned a meteor to intimidate us, then forced me to hand over my puppet techniques and human-puppet creation methods – but he had no intention of killing us."
"So you suspect me," Tendo Pain said coolly.
"I can't rule it out."
Sasori stared into Tendo's Rinnegan and let out a low laugh. "That power—like some sort of universal rule—so far I've only seen it from you. If it's not you, then it means there's someone else in this world who has the same eyes, or at least eyes on par with yours."
"Looks like this ninja world isn't as dull as we imagined."
With that, Sasori's thought-projection slowly shrank away and vanished.
…
Tendo Pain stood there for a few seconds before raising his hand, ring shining faintly. A few minutes later, a creature that looked like a giant pitcher plant wearing a black cloak – half-white, half-black skin – emerged from the ground.
"Leader, what do you need?" Black Zetsu rasped.
"I want you to send your clones to investigate someone…"
Tendo Pain proceeded to pass along all the intel Sasori had given him.
"What?!"
White Zetsu exclaimed, "There's someone besides you who can use Shinra Tensei and Bansho Ten'in?"
"It might be a special secret technique controlling repulsion and attraction, but that's unlikely," Tendo Pain analyzed. "He wore a pure-white mask with no eye holes. Probably it's not that he was flaunting his sensory power, but rather that he didn't want anyone to see his eyes. And judging from how he specifically went after Sasori, merely to get his puppet techniques and human-puppet method… If he's hiding eyes similar to mine, he might be trying to create his own Paths of Pain."
"If so, find this man. If he truly has the Rinnegan, we have to eliminate him before he fights me for control of the Gedo Statue."
"Understood."
Black Zetsu nodded, then melded back into the earth using the Mayfly technique.
…
A half hour later, in the Kamui dimension, Black Zetsu and Obito Uchiha conferred.
"A mysterious figure who can use Shinra Tensei and Bansho Ten'in?"
Obito stared at Black Zetsu – the part representing Madara's will – and asked, "You think it's possible some technique other than the Rinnegan can manipulate gravity?"
"Pain's reasoning was sound," Black Zetsu replied.
"Meaning a 'lucky guy' inherited a Rinnegan – or the leftover powers of some older era – so that outside of us, there's another Rinnegan user with Six Paths powers?" Obito muttered. His face beneath the mask revealed no hint of emotion.
Black Zetsu said nothing, but he felt deeply uneasy. He didn't believe anyone else besides Nagato had the Rinnegan. He had spent a thousand years plotting behind the scenes – whispering to Indra and each of Indra's reincarnations – in order to bring about the second pair of Rinnegan.
He was certain Hagoromo (the Sage of Six Paths) had never passed down his Rinnegan. If he had, someone would have awakened Rinnegan openly in the last thousand years.
They would have used those abilities, and Black Zetsu wouldn't have had to wait until Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju's era.
But controlling repulsion and attraction isn't something a random secret technique can do. The moon overhead exists partly thanks to gravitational forces. White hair, a mask without eye holes, super-keen sensory…
Black Zetsu's suspicions began to crystallize. In all likelihood, that mysterious person came from…the moon. Possibly Hamura's eyes also had such an ability?
He recalled that he was "born" too late, right after his mother was sealed. During times of peace, the only ones to act strongly were Hagoromo on his "repentance journey," while Hamura married and spread his lineage on the moon.
Black Zetsu feared them both and kept his distance. He only knew that once Hagoromo ceased being the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, Hamura led part of the clan to settle on the moon.
The two branches remained in contact briefly, letting Black Zetsu learn that somewhere in the Shinobi World lay a corridor connecting Earth and the moon. That passage wasn't Hagoromo's creation but Hamura's. Hamura's Byakugan evidently could evolve, but not into the Rinnegan.
Beyond that, Black Zetsu had no details. If that lunar branch was trying to reconnect with Earth and had produced a fearsome figure who commanded gravity, summoning meteors…that definitely complicated things.
"Sasori's human-puppet technique can preserve a puppet's bloodline limit and ninjutsu. If that person also has the Rinnegan and wants to create the Six Paths of Pain, he might go around hunting people with powerful bloodlines," Black Zetsu told Obito. "I'll have White Zetsu's clones keep an eye out for strong shinobi in the ninja world. If that guy shows up, we'll notify you and Nagato immediately."
"Fine," Obito replied.
Aside from that, there was little more they could do. The masked figure sounded cautious. All the more reason to take him out fast.
Flight, gravitational push-pull, meteor summoning—Rinnegan or not, that man was a major threat. If they couldn't recruit him, better to eliminate him early, lest he become a huge obstacle to their plans.
~~~
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