"My Best Friend Ruined My Dream: The Madara Story."
Madara read the title, then he read it again. Then a third time, just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
He wanted to be angry. But the cover made him feel… complicated.
Melancholy, even.
It showed him and Hashirama as kids, standing back-to-back on a cliff, both grinning like idiots. His arm was slung around Hashirama's shoulder. In the background, the valley where they'd later try to kill each other looked like a peaceful little postcard.
Then he read the tagline, and that complicated feeling shattered.
"How could a man who couldn't pee with someone behind him be born evil? Konoha just happened."
Madara stared.
He imagined the entire ninja world learning about this deeply personal secret. His eye twitched. For the first time, he wanted to activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi more than ever.
But then he slightly calmed down.
_It's fine,_ he told himself. There are only a few White Zetsu down here. _And with their brains, they won't even understand what is happening._
"Madara-sama," said a White Zetsu, popping out of the ground like a very pale mushroom. Its head tilted at an unnatural angle. "I don't get it."
Madara said nothing.
"Can you really not pee if someone's behind you?" The Zetsu scratched its head. "Is that, like, an Uchiha bloodline thing? 'Cause I've never peed. Not once. Is it hard? Do you need help? I could stand behind you next time to see."
Madara's eye twitched again.
Another Zetsu emerged from the wall. "Ooh! Can I watch too? I've always wondered what peeing looks like. Is it a big dramatic waterfall? Or more like a sad little drizzle?"
"I bet it's majestic," said the first Zetsu, nodding with absolute certainty. "Madara-sama is majestic at everything. Even peeing."
"Can we see? Please?"
"Just once?"
"We won't tell Hashirama."
Madara closed his eyes. He took a slow, deep breath. Then he turned to face the Zetsu with a smile that promised nothing good.
"If either of you ever mentions peeing again," he said, voice eerily calm, "I will use you as the test subject for the Infinite Tsukuyomi's light reflector."
The Zetsu blinked at him in unison.
After a long pause, the first one asked, "...So that's a no to watching?"
Madara activated his Sharingan.
The Zetsu immediately sank back into the ground like startled moles.
"Author's note before we begin: I, Azula Uchiha, am not responsible for any existential crises, sudden sympathy for villains, or uncontrollable urges to yell 'Hashirama is a bad friend' while reading this manga. You have been warned. Now, turn the page and meet young Madara, before the eyebrows took over his face."
Reading this, Madara was certain that at least, this wasn't a book that was trying to make him bad like most manga that used him as a villain in the past few years.
"But how does this young clansmen seem to know everything?" He asked himself because he would say with certainty, Azula is the most interesting Uchiha apart from his brother.
He was certain of that, whether in terms of innovation or powers, he liked her very much, just that sometimes, she was very Uchihaless like, but he could tolerate it.
He didn't dwell on this, only noting in his mind he would uncover all the secrets she has to hide, but for now, he wants to continue reading.
He turned the page.
[Page One – The Warring States]
A wide, two-panel spread filled his vision.
The top panel showed a battlefield at sunset. Two armies clashed, Uchiha and Senju, red and dark blue, fire and water with bodies littered the ground.
In the foreground, a small boy sat on a rock, knees pulled to his chest, watching the chaos with huge, tired eyes. Another boy younger and smaller slept against his shoulder, bandaged.
Madara's breath caught.
_That's me and Izuna._
The art was… surprisingly good, very detailed and emotional with the boy's eyes holding a weight that no child should carry.
A narration box read: "The Warring States period. A time when children were given swords before they could write their own names."
And in a small thought bubble above young Madara's head: "One day… I'll end this."
Madara's throat tightened because he forgot if such a scenario have ever happened. _Did I forget my original intention?_
Then he turned to the bottom half of the page—three vertical slices.
Slice one: Young Madara throwing a kunai at a target, but he missed. His fists were clenched in frustration.
"He trained, fought and buried too many family members."
Slice two: A riverbank. A goofy-looking boy with long brown hair skipped stones. He turned and waved at Madara with a huge, stupid grin.
"Hey, angry-eyebrows! Wanna see how many rocks I can throw?"
Slice three: Madara, caught off guard, had the tiniest, most reluctant smile on his face. He was trying to hide it by looking away.
"And then… he met an idiot."
Madara stared.
She drew that. She drew me smiling at Hashirama.
He wanted to be angry. But the memory came back unbidden, the first time he had met Hashirama by the river, both of them lying about their names, both of them pretending not to be enemy clan children. They had thrown rocks, had laughed and for the first time, he forgot about death for a few hours.
He turned the page before the feeling could settle.
The more he read, the more memories came flooding back, ones he had buried deep inside his heart.
But then he noticed something.
"She's eerily accurate about events no one should know about," he muttered. "And yet on other things, she just makes up original scenarios. It's like… half real, half fiction."
He started thinking about how she could possibly know all this, and landed on two conclusions.
"Either she awakened her Mangekyō Sharingan, which is very likely, and its ability lets her peek into the past. That's one possibility. Or she has some other jutsu that gives her access to historical events. Could also still be her Mangekyō…"
He paused.
"...Hmm. Could she have used Tobirama's Edo Tensei for this? It doesn't seem impossible, given what I've learned about her personality."
The more he considered Azula, the more interested he became.
And deep down, looking at how she portrayed him and everyone else in her works, he felt she wasn't as innocent or naive as that young version of himself and Hashirama on the riverbank.
_She might even be able to help with my plan,_ he thought. The Infinite Tsukuyomi.
His Rinnegan glowed purple with the intensity of his emotions.
Still, this was only the first volume of the manga. Madara noted that it focused mostly on portraying his innocence.
It showed his relationships with his brothers, especially his bond with Izuna. The raw emotions of the Uchiha clan, the constant danger and wars of the Warring States period. And his strange, growing friendship with Hashirama, with some conflict sprinkled here and there.
Unexpectedly, he found himself hooked.
On a story about himself.
Something he never would have imagined before.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
Someone wanted Madara's reaction, someone got it