Tobirama Senju shrugged and gave Izuna Uchiha only one sentence. "You think you can do it? Then you go."
When it came to his overly naive older brother, no amount of control would fix the root of the problem.
Looking at Madara Uchiha, who was furious but unable to lash out, and then at his own older brother clowning around beside him, Tobirama Senju nearly rolled his eyes to the sky.
And if one had to describe Madara Uchiha's current state of mind, it would probably be this.
Hashirama Senju! Don't touch me!!
With Hashirama Senju, the "Madara Uchiha capture device," or perhaps the "Madara Uchiha exclusive Master Ball," present, no matter how one listened to the aged Madara in the footage, his words sounded like those of a patient in the neurology department who had wanted something, failed to obtain it, and become far too obsessed.
Things like, "Everything in this world is the same. Where there is light, there is also darkness."
Or, "As long as the concept of winners exists, losers will inevitably exist as well. Self-serving actions like protecting peace will only give rise to war."
Or, "In order to protect love, hatred will be born alongside it."
["This is an inseparable chain of cause and effect. That is how things have always been. But there is one way to sever that cause and effect."]
Naruto said, "Is Uncle Madara really this long-winded? His lines are even longer than Second Hokage's lectures, dattebayo."
Whoosh!
Two gazes shot toward that blond kid who always spoke his mind.
Minato Namikaze smiled politely and nodded, silently asking the two of them to be a little patient.
In truth, what Madara Uchiha and Tobirama Senju were thinking was, As expected of another reincarnation of Ashura. That Naruto kid is exactly like that idiot Hashirama/Big Brother.
Their gazes then unconsciously shifted to Sasuke Uchiha. Some kinds of fate were truly hard to put into words.
Obito whispered to Naruto, "The Ancestor must have already been in his eighties by then, right? Being able to say that much in one breath isn't easy. We need to respect the elderly."
Naruto rested both hands behind his head, looking utterly carefree.
"Hmph, who knows? Third Hokage Old Man was about that age too, but when he saw my self-created Sexy Technique, didn't he still spray a nosebleed ten meters away?"
Madara Uchiha's black-gloved fist struck Naruto on the skull. "Don't compare me to a brat like Hiruzen Sarutobi!"
Naruto clutched his head and cried out in pain, while Minato Namikaze's mouth twitched into an awkward smile.
Still, it was true that old people tended to talk a lot. In the footage, Madara Uchiha rambled on for more than ten minutes before finally stopping.
The broken, bandage-covered Obito nearly fell asleep listening to him.
In the footage, the drowsy Obito Uchiha forced himself to think.
["Why would a decrepit old man who can barely walk appear in a dark tunnel like this?"]
["Something's wrong."]
["Come to think of it, I know every old man and old lady in the village, but I've never seen this person even once. That means this old geezer isn't a Konoha ninja."]
["He has the Sharingan, but he isn't a Konoha ninja. Could he be a rogue ninja?!"]
Everyone listened to Obito's analysis in the footage while looking at the old man inside, who was barely clinging to life and needed to lean on a cane, moving step by step, just to walk twenty meters or so.
The ninjas of the Warring States Period thought to themselves that when the average lifespan was thirty, any ninja who could live to such an age was absolutely an old monster among monsters. He could not be underestimated.
The people in the Uchiha Clan compound and the Senju Clan compound were still thinking that, based on Obito's age, that old man had probably lived from their era all the way to Obito's time.
Young Obito in the footage asked once more who he was. This time, the old man finally gave a direct answer.
["I am the ghost of the Uchiha."]
The words that followed were like a bomb exploding inside the Uchiha Clan.
["I am, Madara Uchiha!"]
Young Madara: "!!!"
Young Izuna: "!!!!"
Myoko, Togakushi, Kurohi, and the five brothers' father, Tajima Uchiha, were all stunned.
"That person..."
"Is me?!"
Young Madara Uchiha felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
He was only thirteen years old!
It was already bad enough to see himself in his twenties looking like "no one in the Ninja World is worth my notice, only Hashirama is worthy of fighting me." And now he was being shown what he would look like in the future when he was about to die of old age?!
Lonely, my ass!! If he was that lonely, he should have died earlier!!!
How humiliating!!
Unlike Young Madara Uchiha's state of mind, Izuna, who had been revived by the mission scroll, watched his brother struggling to survive alone in an underground tunnel, and his heart felt so heavy it was about to burst. It was all because of his own choice that his brother could no longer find anything he wanted to protect.
Madara Uchiha, standing beside him, forced himself to hold on. At this moment, he finally understood the terror of true social death.
But as the saying went, as long as I am not embarrassed, the embarrassed one is someone else.
Only...
That kind of personality fit Ashura's lineage perfectly, but it was a terrible match for Indra's—especially people like Madara and Sasuke Uchiha, who were far too proud and easily embarrassed.
Feeling the gazes cast at him from every direction, Madara Uchiha truly wanted to use Susanoo to crush every single one of them.
In the footage.
["Madara Uchiha?! How could Madara Uchiha possibly be alive now?! That was from ages ago!!"]
["Would you rather believe I am a Shinigami? That would not be wrong either. This real world itself is like hell. If you want to know why I am still alive..."]
The footage showed something like a tube attached to the back of Madara Uchiha's neck.
That long object stretched all the way to a strange tree behind Madara Uchiha's seat.
At the top of the tree was a flower that rather resembled the blossoms created by Wood Release: Advent of a World of Flowering Trees, but the truly shocking part was...
A Hashirama Senju had actually grown out of the tree?!
The bare-chested Hashirama Senju was positioned above Madara Uchiha's head. He did not look like a carving, but rather something growing from within the tree.
It was as if there were a living Hashirama Senju inside the tree, trying to break free from its restraints.
Milky-white human husks hung from the branches as well, making the scene in the darkness look even more bizarre.
Many of the civilians watching below screamed and no longer dared to look.
["This Demonic Statue cultivated from Hashirama's cells supplies me with a steady stream of chakra. That is the only reason this old fossil has managed to cling to life until today."]
"Oh my god! Even seeing it for the second time, it still makes my whole body go numb!"
Young Obito Uchiha rubbed his arms.
Naruto, seeing it for the first time, could not agree more with Obito.
"Now that you mention it, you told us about this before." He remembered the tunnel scene Obito had described after the mission scroll took him back to his own world. "So the real thing is even scarier than what you said."
Sakura nodded. "It's like a ghost trying to break out of a seal."
"Aaaah! Sakura, don't scare me!" Naruto instinctively jumped onto Sasuke like a koala.
Sasuke peeled Naruto off himself. "You're so noisy, coward! Just watch the footage!"
The children giggled and bickered, completely forgetting to consider the feelings of the adults behind them.
On top of that, the passersby nearby were throwing out guesses one after another.
"Maybe his obsession was too deep?"
"This kind of feeling, sugar hidden in a blade, poison hidden in the sugar. It's so moving."
"No, don't you think someone like that is terrifying?"
"That's true. We commoners aren't ninjas or noble lords. We can't afford to play around with things like this."
Hashirama Senju crouched on the ground.
Dejected, he accused Madara Uchiha, "That's too much. You made my face and body look so disgusting. If you missed me that badly, why didn't you come out of that underground tunnel? You could have returned to Konoha and drunk and gambled with me. Isn't that better than clinging to life all alone in a sunless tunnel?"
"Who said I missed you?! It's because Konoha had an idiot like you that I couldn't stay there!!"
Thud!!
Those words dealt such a heavy blow to the First Hokage that he sank into severe depression, nearly shrinking straight into the ground.
Madara Uchiha gnashed his teeth.
He wanted to use Susanoo to block that thing in the sky, but he was too embarrassed to do something so childish.
Little did he know that, because of the two of them, the poor Young Hashirama and Young Madara had suffered severe damage to their reputations. In the future, they would even be written into a popular novel that sold throughout the entire Warring States Period.
In the footage that followed, Young Obito Uchiha had no desire to waste his life in this underground tunnel with a decrepit old man. He struggled, trying to escape.
["Do not move recklessly. Your ruined limbs were patched together using a human body modified with Hashirama's cells. They have not fully fused with your own body yet. If you keep moving, you will fall apart."]
"In a certain sense, does that child count as the child of that person called Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju?"
Damn it, who the hell twisted the topic in this direction?!
Madara Uchiha was so angry his Rinnegan nearly popped out.
Fugaku Uchiha: "..."
This world was too surreal. He wanted to go back to the Pure Land.
In the footage.
["What exactly did you take me for?! To you, I should just be some useless brat, right?!"]
["I need you to sever the cause and effect of this world and create a world without losers, without war, where only love exists."]
"Madara..."
Hashirama Senju, still depressed, looked at Madara Uchiha after hearing the words spoken by the Madara Uchiha in the footage. His emotions were complicated.
What came to mind were memories of the gentle boy from childhood, the boy full of hope for peace, who had single-mindedly wanted to protect his last remaining brother.
At the same time, those words made the ninjas and civilians of the Warring States Period stop joking and discussing.
No matter where they were, they all silently watched the footage in the sky, and deep in their hearts, they yearned for such a world too.
No victors, and therefore no losers.
No divide between nobles and commoners.
No rich and poor.
No agonizing choice between abandoning a comrade to continue the mission or protecting a comrade and abandoning the mission.
A world with only love and only peace. Who would not want that?
Especially in this Warring States Period, where the average lifespan was only around thirty years. Aside from the tiny handful of people standing at the very top of the pyramid, who would not want love and peace?