What kind of message did Obito Uchiha's words actually convey?
Pain's expression never softened from start to finish. The S-rank missing-nin who had come to attend Akatsuki's regular meeting all sensed that something enormous was unfolding in front of them…
No, not just something enormous.
It was an entire field of explosive gossip.
Had Akatsuki's missing-nin all been absorbed by Konoha?!
Judging by Leader Pain's attitude, this man who went by Madara Uchiha, Obito Uchiha, or Tobi clearly wasn't some ordinary reserve member of Akatsuki.
More importantly, Pain's Rinnegan techniques—Shinra Tensei and Banshō Ten'in—had absolutely no effect on him.
Could it be tentatively concluded that this man's strength was at least on par with Pain himself?
And setting aside how Itachi Uchiha, the man who slaughtered his own clan, could possibly return to Konoha, just Kisame Hoshigaki alone wasn't even from Konoha in the first place, was he?
Had Konoha really stretched its hand so far that it was even trying to absorb missing-nin from other villages?
Deidara said, "Is Konoha not afraid of going to war with Kirigakure? The Fourth Mizukage of the Bloody Mist isn't someone to mess with, right?!"
Obito Uchiha fell silent, thinking to himself: I don't really dislike meat, but what I really don't want to eat lately is red bean cake.
And also…
Is it possible that the Fourth Mizukage of the Bloody Mist you're talking about…might very well be standing right in front of you right now?
"I want to know what this Ōtsutsuki clan Zetsu mentioned actually is," Kakuzu said. "I've traveled the ninja world for nearly a century, and I've never heard of such a clan."
Hidan added, "And what about that Kaguya? I honestly can't imagine what kind of woman could give birth to something like Zetsu. What kind of woman is she, anyway? That Kaguya is a woman, right?"
Hey! I can answer that one!
Estimating that the other version of himself from the parallel world would be back within half an hour, Adult Obito figured that one of them could draw the fire while the other went to retrieve the Sharingan stored in the base.
Perfect.
Adult Obito gestured as he explained to Hidan, "From both appearance and function, Kaguya should indeed be female. But her lifespan is eternal. She's immortal and undying, a form of life completely beyond your imagination."
"Eternal?"
Just from the voice alone, it was clear who had spoken.
Sasori of the Red Sand.
Obito turned to look at the man who had gone so far as to turn himself into a puppet. He remembered that Sasori had ended up like this because his parents had died during wartime, killed by Kakashi's father, the White Fang.
"That Ōtsutsuki Kaguya…"
He had expected Sasori to ask questions, helping him drag things out for another half hour.
Instead, after a brief pause, Sasori simply said, "She understands my art."
No. She absolutely does not understand it!
Your puppets still need manual control.
The ones she uses are self-aware White Zetsu puppets!
Even though both are puppets made from living people, the difference in essence is enormous!
Having once experienced Naruto Uzumaki's life in another world, lived through the Fourth Shinobi World War, and personally witnessed how helpless the Allied Shinobi Forces were against the White Zetsu Edo Tensei army…
Especially with several former Kage mixed into the Edo Tensei ranks, facing that mob had been like bullying children.
To borrow that old man Madara Uchiha's words, who would bother arguing with kids?
Unsure whether saying more would damage whatever remained of his former colleagues' relationships, Adult Obito decided not to escalate things for now.
"Art is the beauty of a single moment, hmm."
Because of Sasori's words, Deidara immediately steered the conversation off in a different direction.
He stretched out his hand, a chubby little clay bird perched on his palm. "I can compromise on other things for Sasori's danna, but when it comes to art, I'll never back down!"
"..."
Watching the two of them start arguing about art, Kakuzu, as one of the few 'normal' people present, was internally full of complaints.
Even though he had never seen Madara Uchiha in person, he knew all too well how dangerous that name was. So among everyone present, only Kakuzu, Pain, and Konan remained fully alert toward the man standing before them, dressed in simple black clothes, the right side of his face marred by strange scars.
And speaking of the aesthetics of explosions…
"You've spent your entire life playing with explosions."
Obito Uchiha's voice successfully drew Deidara's attention.
"Huh?"
A blond head just like Minato Namikaze's and Naruto Uzumaki's stared impatiently at the maskless "Tobi."
"I mean… you suddenly stopped calling yourself a love-struck high school girl, and now I'm actually kind of not used to it."
Obito Uchiha pulled a mask out of the space he carried with him and put it back on, switching straight into Tobi's tone.
"Deidara-senpai has played with bombs his whole life, but they're basically all knockoffs, right? When it comes to the art of explosions, you should really go learn from Konan and our Second Hokage of Konoha~"
Serious Nagato: "..."
Serious Kakuzu: "..."
Serious Konan: "You know about the explosive tags?"
Even Nagato hadn't known about this. Unexpectedly, it still hadn't escaped Madara's eyes.
"What do you mean by explosive tags?" Pain tilted his head slightly and asked Konan.
At this point, there was nothing left to hide.
Konan said, "I never trusted Madara, so many years ago I started stockpiling explosive tags in the sea of the Land of Rain."
Many years ago…
So how many were there, exactly?
"For now, only forty-seven hundred."
"Forty-seven hundred?"
Deidara tilted his head. That didn't sound like much.
Obito Uchiha helpfully finished the number for Konan.
"The unit is billions. She used four hundred and seventy billion explosive tags."
Nagato: ...
Kakuzu: ...
Deidara: ...
In that instant, both Kakuzu and Deidara felt a crushing sense of defeat.
One because of money.
The other because of art.
"Hahahahaha, seriously?!" Hidan laughed so hard he had to lean on his scythe just to stay upright. "Hey! Deidara, that's a total loss for you! You call yourself an artist, but you don't even come close to Konan!"
Konan showed no reaction at all. She only regretted that this hidden card had been exposed to Madara. Now that he had brought it out into the open, what exactly was he planning?
Deidara's expression gradually twisted as he started yelling back at Hidan.
Beside them, Sasori of the Red Sand and Kakuzu looked like two exhausted guardians watching over children. The kind who stayed silent and couldn't be bothered, only stepping in if their own kid actually got hurt.
"Oh my~~ if there's a chance, I really should introduce you to our village's Second Hokage~~" Tobi continued provoking without restraint. "His Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags are absolutely amazing. Honestly, you could pull out anyone at random and they'd still completely crush Deidara-senpai's art~~"
At the first half of that, Deidara was actually a little interested.
But Tobi just had to run his mouth in the second half…
"Do you believe I can blow you up right now?!!"
"Yare yare, six hundred billion explosive tags and Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags couldn't even kill me. Senpai, is there really nothing wrong with your art? Or are you planning to self-destruct? No, no, that definitely won't work either!"
The Obito who had only lived through Naruto Uzumaki's life, and only knew what Naruto knew, had no idea that in the main timeline, Obito Uchiha was also a man who existed amid explosions.
Not to mention six hundred billion explosive tags or Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags, even Deidara's C0 self-destruction hadn't managed to fake his death…
But that was fine. He was already close to pushing Deidara to the point of using C0 right there in the base.
"Shut up, Deidara."
At last, one of the exhausted guardians spoke.
"But, Sasori-danna!"
Deidara, who was about the same age as Haku, tried to complain.
Sasori of the Red Sand said, "He's also an Uchiha, and you have almost no resistance to genjutsu. Don't fall for it."
Obito Uchiha wanted to say that although he could use genjutsu, he was nowhere near Itachi Uchiha's level.
After all, Itachi Uchiha was a true prodigy of the clan, while he himself had just been a pitiful dead last.
He didn't know whether saying all this would end up enraging everyone in the base to death, but Pain was already at the end of his rope.
Still, he knew that anything involving "Madara" touched the very core of Akatsuki and the fate of world peace. This wasn't something trivial, and it wasn't convenient to let every member know.
Pain wanted to fight Madara, but Madara had far too many hidden cards. And now this "Madara" had revealed several more layers of identity, making it even harder for Pain and Konan to gauge just how deep the water really was.
"The rest of you stay here on standby," Pain said, staring straight at Obito. "You're coming with me."
Sasori and Kakuzu didn't really care either way. Deidara and Hidan, on the other hand, were practically scratching at their hearts, desperate to take a bite out of the massive field of gossip in front of them. The secrets surrounding Tobi were far deeper than they had imagined. It even looked like Leader Pain himself didn't have an easy way to deal with him.
Earlier, they'd heard that the explosive tags Konan had been stockpiling for years were all meant to kill Tobi.
Was that just exaggeration… or something else entirely?
As Pain, Konan, and Tobi left one after another, Sasori of the Red Sand let out a cold chuckle.
"Hmph. Looks like the organization is about to change."
"Who knows? Hmph. As long as I can focus on counting my money, that's enough for me," Kakuzu replied.
This was how conversations between two completely unmotivated guardians usually went. Plain, blunt, and to the point.
"Hey, Sasori-danna," Deidara called.
"Hmm?"
"Kisame is a missing-nin from Kirigakure, right? Why did he end up 'marrying into' Konoha too? Saying he's exhausted from war and all that… Is that Konoha guesthouse really that amazing? Even Itachi Uchiha doesn't want to leave?"
"That's not how you use that word," Sasori replied coolly. "If you don't understand it, don't use it."
"Huh? Oh."
"A guesthouse that dares to shelter missing-nin…" Sasori of the Red Sand muttered to himself.
He remembered Tobi mentioning that it was run by a Hatake jōnin from Konoha.
Hatake…
Sakumo…
Sasori of the Red Sand would never forget that name. The man who had killed his parents.
Kakuzu said, "What is the Hokage thinking? The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was never this reckless. Has the Hokage already been replaced?"
Looks like next time he went to the black market, he really should ask around about what was going on in Konoha.
Sasori said, "There's been news coming from Suna recently."