"A disciple of Madara Uchiha?"
Hearing this cursed name, Rasa and Mei remained relatively calm, but Onoki was the first to exclaim in pure surprise. If anyone present had the deepest, most traumatic impression of the man, it was undoubtedly Onoki.
He had lived through that bloody era. He had witnessed Madara's invincible power firsthand. That absolute, crushing power that made a man's very soul tremble.
"Are you certain it is 'that' Madara from Konoha?" Onoki dropped his previous indifferent attitude, a rare, deep seriousness crossing his brow as he bombarded Ay with rapid questions.
"Did you see his Sharingan? Had it reached the Mangekyo level?"
"Sharingan? Mangekyo?"
This time, it was Ay's turn to be utterly stunned. He knew what the base Sharingan was, but what on earth was a Mangekyo?
"Isn't Madara's disciple supposed to be from the Uchiha Clan?" Seeing Ay's blank expression, Onoki realized something and immediately relaxed, letting out a heavy sigh of relief. As long as the attacker wasn't an Uchiha, and as long as he didn't possess those cursed eyes, it was manageable.
Back then, Madara was the very physical symbol of invincibility. With the strength of just one man, he suppressed the other Four Great Ninja Villages until they could barely breathe, forcing them to live entirely in his dark shadow.
Thankfully, he died due to Konoha's own internal civil war. Otherwise, he would have been the true living nightmare for the rest of the world.
Just imagine, if the Uchiha Clan had defected en masse to Iwagakure before the night of the massacre, what would Onoki have done to them? Would he have ruthlessly researched their eyes?
"Onoki, even without the Sharingan, he is a terrifying opponent." Seeing the slightly relieved look on the old man's face, Ay grew anxious. "Don't underestimate him for a second."
Onoki scoffed dismissively. "I know better than you do how great a threat Madara is, Ay."
"I am the one who survived that era."
"Ay, you must have more intelligence you haven't shared yet," Rasa interrupted, signaling for the hulking man to continue.
"Indeed. What I mentioned just now was only the first incident." Ay nodded grimly. "There was a second attack. I was not in the village at that time. By the time I arrived, the brutal battle was already over. My brother had already been taken."
"Fortunately, I did manage to glean some highly useful information. Perhaps because their operation was hasty, a few survivors managed to live through the destruction."
Ay paused heavily at this point.
"According to the survivors descriptions, the attackers bodies have been heavily modified, similar to this prosthetic arm of mine, but the modification is far more thorough. Not just the limbs, their entire bodies have been altered."
"Kunai and shuriken can't scratch their skin in the slightest, and even high-level ninjutsu is entirely useless."
"The leader is a man wearing a silver mask covering half his face. He also calls himself Kashin Koji."
"Also?" Mei keenly caught the crucial keyword.
"Correct. The person who attacked Kumogakure the very first time also called himself Kashin Koji."
Rasa spoke up again, frowning. "Are you certain it isn't the exact same person?"
"The first was a purely taijutsu-type ninja, while the second was a comprehensive ninjutsu-user. How could they possibly be the same man?"
"So..." Raikage's voice dropped ominously low. "I suspect Kashin Koji is not a single person, but an entire organization."
"The devastating attack on Kumogakure was carried out by this very group called Kashin Koji. The high-ranking members of this organization all use that exact name."
"At first, I thought it was an individual, but now it seems it is merely a shared codename."
"Perhaps there is no Kashin Koji at all. Or perhaps everyone in it is Kashin Koji."
'Huh?' Naruto looked in confusion. 'Wasn't Kashin Koji a clone of Jiraiya? Jiraiya is alive.'
Is that even possible?
Even Naruto had to admire Ay's wild imagination.
"Are you saying Madara founded this organization, Kashin Koji?" Onoki followed the bizarre train of thought.
Mei continued the theory. "Or is it that the core member of this organization calling himself Kashin Koji is actually Madara's true disciple?"
Ay nodded firmly. "Precisely!"
'Have all your IQs been dragged down to his level? Next, he's going to use his vast experience to defeat you all.'
At that moment, a look of utter absurdity crossed Naruto's face. Yet, thinking about it carefully, Ay's logic actually made a fair bit of twisted sense.
Madara had been gone from Konoha for many long years. Upon his sudden return, he fought a massive, world-altering battle with Hashirama at the Valley of the End. In the end, both were mortally wounded, Madara was killed, and Hashirama passed away a few years later. No one knew what he had done during the years he was missing. It was entirely possible he had taken on secret disciples or even fathered radical children.
Madara founded the organization 'Kashin Koji,' and trained several disciples as a dark contingency plan.
To resurrect...
The shinobi world's number one conspirator, Madara?
It fit the political logic so well, Naruto almost believed it himself. The key point was that Madara certainly 'did' leave behind a contingency, but absolutely not this one.
"They captured my brother instead of killing him. Previously, they also captured the Two-Tails. Their objective must be to aggressively collect the Tailed Beasts," Ay dropped another bombshell.
"Even the Two-Tails was taken? Then it seems they really are after the beasts," Onoki said. Had this been any other time, he would have been secretly delighted at Kumo's loss, but since Madara was involved, he had to treat this seriously.
Mei also nodded in grave agreement.
Hearing this, Naruto cast a deeply odd glance at the three leaders, who were in the midst of a heated, paranoid discussion. These three had managed to reach an answer incredibly close to the actual truth using completely incorrect, fabricated information.
Could this be the legendary 'Two Heads Are Better Than One'?
'Excellent.'
However, the fact that the real Kashin Koji had appeared actually came as a genuine surprise to Naruto. He had only intended to create a cool secret identity for himself, he never expected the genuine article to show up and ruin things.
Kashin Koji was a clone of Jiraiya, created by a mad scientist named Amado. However, no one knew when exactly he cloned the Toad Sage. Theoretically, it was entirely possible he was cloned even before Jiraiya was killed by Pain.
To make another guess, perhaps the current Kashin Koji and the future Kashin Koji were not even the same person. After all, there was no rule stating Amado could only create one clone. Amado might have a series of Jiraiya clones.
There was still one glaring problem. With so many ninja villages possessing Tailed Beasts, why did they choose Kumogakure first?
In the future, they targeted Konoha first for the Scientific Ninja Tools. Going after Kumo surely wasn't just for the Eight-Tails. What else in the mountains was worth such an enormous effort for them?
Naruto shot a look at Rasa, and his mental voice echoed clearly in Rasa's head. After Rasa understood, Rasa slowly opened his mouth.
"Raikage."
"You are still hiding something crucial from us, aren't you?"
"The loss of the Two-Tails and the Eight-Tails isn't the extent of what happened to your village."
"As expected of a Kage." Ay didn't seem intent on hiding anything further. "They didn't just capture my brother and the Two-Tails, they also violently took the Amber Purifying Pot, a sacred relic left by the Sage of Six Paths, and..."
"Kumogakure's secret weapon, the Chakra Cannon, was stolen by them as well."
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