The operation began with Shūishi's eyes.
The transplant was delicate. Mali oversaw the entire procedure himself, sealing each channel with fine-tuned medical chakra.
When the bandages came off hours later, Shūishi blinked slowly. The Mangekyō pattern spun faintly in the dim light.
"How do they feel?" Mali asked.
Shūishi smirked. "Like they never left me."
A pause, quiet but firm. "And my heart's ready. No doubts left."
Mali nodded once. That was enough.
For the next week, they hunted Orochimaru's trail through whispers, coded letters, and tavern talk in back alleys. The black market smelled of smoke and cheap alcohol, every conversation holding more lies than truth.
A contact slid a folded paper across their table in a dim trading hall.
"Sound Village. East sector. He's been seen there three nights now."
Minato scanned it quickly. His voice was low. "That's the first solid lead."
Mali rose without hesitation. "We move tonight."
The ruins of Sound Village were quiet except for the occasional creak of rotting wood.
Shūishi stepped ahead of the others, scanning every shadow. His Sharingan caught movement before a faint hiss cut through the air.
Orochimaru stepped into the open, hands folded behind his back, his grin thin and sharp.
"Minato. Uchiha Mali," he said casually. "And dear Shūishi… I was beginning to think you'd all forgotten me."
"We didn't come for talk," Minato said evenly.
Orochimaru tilted his head. "So soon to fight? At least let me welcome you properly—"
The last word barely left his lips before his body lunged, faster than sight.
Shūishi pivoted instantly, kunai flashing. Orochimaru's extended neck shot past him, fangs striking toward Mali's blind side.
Lightning flared around Mali's arm, forcing the snake back, but Orochimaru grinned and split into two shadow clones that darted into opposite flanks.
Shūishi's movements were clean and deliberate, Mangekyō weaving genjutsu traps into narrow openings between strikes. One clone dissolved in a flurry of shuriken, the other immobilized mid-step by sheer visual domination.
But Orochimaru himself was slippery — body twisting unnaturally, sword sliding from his mouth in a sudden slash.
Minato intercepted with a kunai, sparks ringing in the cramped hallway of broken stone.
The exchange grew vicious — shunshin bursts, substitution feints, water bullets deflected by wind kunai. Shūishi countered every lunge, his footwork shifting sharply, his eyes never leaving Orochimaru's own.
Bit by bit, the snake's rhythm broke.
With a feint and a snap of his wrist, Shūishi's genjutsu wrapped fully around Orochimaru's senses.
"You've reached the end of your choices," Shūishi said quietly, Mangekyō spinning at full force.
Orochimaru's muscles tensed… then slackened. His breathing slowed, eyes fogging with submission.
In the aftermath of the Sound Village fight, Mali had paused mid-watch. Something faint had brushed against his senses — not chakra, but the unnatural stillness of hiding predators.
He moved, hand already glowing with concentrated lightning. Under shattered timber, six White Zetsu aliev struggling with limbs Cross lay crumpled, their faces and torsos smashed beyond identification.
" white zetsu," Mali muttered. " reanimation justu "
Chains of lightning chakra wound tight around him, sealing the capture.
Within hours, they had moved him to Mali Island.
Guards watched every moment as he was installed inside a reinforced seal chamber.
There was no defiance now — only slow, precise work as he began building the clone vessel under Shūishi's influence.
Six months later, the eyes of Uchiha Izuna opened within that chamber.
That night, in the upper ritual chamber, the air was heavy with sealing smoke.
Mali stood at the center, Minato and Shūishi at his side, hands locked in the precise shapes of forbidden seals.
"Let's begin," Mali said.
The ground shuddered as the Reanimation Jutsu took hold. Ash and soil swirled into human shape.
When the smoke cleared, Uchiha Izuna stood beside the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, both steady and aware.