Tobirama no longer had any patience to deal with Uchiha Madara. He had far too much to do.
Seeds to cultivate, instruments to develop, jutsu to create.
He had no time to concern himself with anyone else.
Though he understood his brother's purpose in assigning these tasks — to give the villagers of Konoha, and indeed all the people of the shinobi world, a better life. So he bore it without complaint.
Beyond his daily duties, he began developing a brand-new jutsu.
A jutsu that could bring the dead back to life.
Not true resurrection — but eternal life without death. For his brother and Uchiha Madara, this state limited their strength. But for ordinary shinobi, they would actually be stronger than in life.
Tobirama planned that after his own death, he would have someone use this jutsu to revive him.
To continue developing new technology.
And his brother Hashirama too — after death, Tobirama would bring him back as well. His Wood Release was far too effective for transforming plants.
It carried such concentrated vitality that even the soil grew more fertile!
As for Uchiha Madara?
Hmph. If that guy dies, he dies. Not a jot of use.
And in truth, that was accurate.
Uchiha Madara was genuinely inferior to Tobirama in research. He lacked Wood Release entirely — the ability to promote plant growth, to reshape plant life.
Right now, Madara's only roles were handling Konoha's administrative affairs and studying.
A book titled *Red Thought*, authored by Hashirama.
Hashirama claimed it came from a book that existed in his dreams — a work containing ideas of immeasurable greatness.
He hoped Madara would absorb its knowledge thoroughly.
Understand what he needed to do in the future, and how to do it.
Madara didn't know who had written this book. But its ideas genuinely shocked him.
Peace was no simple matter.
He already knew this much.
His prior conversations with Hashirama had given him a deeper understanding of how difficult it would be to create peace.
Shinobi, jutsu, land, environment, even power — none of it could bring true peace.
Even without chakra, without shinobi, the world would not be at peace!
War's damage simply wouldn't be so catastrophic.
How many could swords alone kill?
Madara had even come to realize that establishing shinobi villages wasn't a correct solution either.
He and Hashirama built Konoha. Fire Country, Water Country — they all followed suit, establishing their own shinobi villages. But the existence of shinobi villages meant those villages necessarily contained large numbers of shinobi, clans, and families.
Once war broke out, its scale would be nowhere near what old clan skirmishes used to be.
Right now, he and Hashirama were alive. The other villages, intimidated by their strength, were willing to go along with Hashirama's original, naive ideas.
But the moment he and Hashirama died, losing the two supreme-level fighters that they were — villages would inevitably go to war with each other over resources.
Konoha occupied the most fertile land in the shinobi world and possessed the richest resources. It would inevitably become the target of every other shinobi village attacking as one!
Back then, both he and Hashirama had been too narrow-minded. They simply couldn't conceive of a better solution.
As for distributing the tailed beasts — Hashirama had told him he once entertained such an idea. But hoping to achieve peace through that alone was far too naive.
If every village possessed overwhelming deterrence — even the ability to destroy each other's villages, mutual destruction — then chances were they'd maintain the existing peace out of mutual fear.
Unless they found a way to make each other's deterrence disappear.
Hashirama's idea of distributing the tailed beasts was precisely this reasoning.
But back then, Hashirama had thought too simply.
The tailed beasts' power was decent, but nowhere near sufficient for deterrence.
Just a few Kage-level shinobi could tie down a single tailed beast.
Such power wasn't enough to make other villages wary.
Unless it was deterrence comparable to him and Hashirama — but that was impossible.
Conquer the entire shinobi world?
Such an idea surfaced in Madara's mind. He had considered it before.
With him and Hashirama's strength, conquering it wasn't impossible either.
Whoever disagreed, died!
Hashirama certainly wouldn't have agreed before. But now, perhaps.
Even if future generations judged him too ruthless, he didn't care. He never had.
*Sin for the current generation, merit for a thousand generations!*
This was something that had to be done on the road to peace.
But was unification alone enough?
And after unification — what then?
These questions he had never considered before.
Administering a single shinobi village wasn't simple. How much less an entire nation comprising the entire shinobi world?
Unification wasn't difficult. What was difficult was maintaining stability after unification.
Madara's gaze fell on the book in his hands. Inside it lay the answers he sought.
First: the nobles and daimyo.
They held the vast majority of resources in the shinobi world. They possessed far too much, and believed themselves superior to ordinary people.
This was undoubtedly incorrect thinking.
*All people are born equal!*
No one was more noble than anyone else — Madara himself included.
Unless he transcended the human state entirely.
Of course, the core issue was class!
In the current shinobi world, if ordinary people were one class, then shinobi were another. Above that: clans, then clans with bloodline limits, then village Kage, then nobles and daimyo!
Even if a shinobi possessed overwhelming power, in the eyes of those people he was nothing but a weapon.
A weapon that generated profit for them.
Even he and Hashirama hadn't escaped this fate.
Because Konoha still needed Fire Country's support.
He needed a revolution. Ordinary people needed a revolution too — a revolution to change their class.
First: the nobles and daimyo. The future nation had no place for them.
Then: the shinobi. In the future nation, no shinobi would exist — only warriors who protected and served the people.
But a problem lurked within this as well.
The potential conflict between bloodline-limit shinobi and non-bloodline-limit shinobi.
At the same level of shinobi ability, in terms of innate talent and potential, only the rarest of ordinary people could match a shinobi with a bloodline limit.
This would breed a superiority complex in bloodline-limit shinobi!
It would also breed inferiority, even resentment, in non-bloodline-limit shinobi toward those with bloodline limits.
The two sides would even spontaneously split into opposing factions.
If possible, he wanted to break through the barrier of bloodline limits — to give everyone the possibility of acquiring one.
Right now, this was of course impossible. But in the future… not necessarily.
*Science!*
This was the concept Hashirama had proposed — something he claimed to have seen in his dreams.
*Science is humanity's first productive force!*
Analysis, recording, study, creation — science could accomplish everything he envisioned.
Could bloodline limits be analyzed?
*(End of Chapter)*
---
*Leave of Absence*
*Brothers, my friend is getting married these days and I was invited to be a groomsman, so I've been quite busy.*
*The chapters I owe will be made up later.*
*Finally, I wish all of you find the other half you're looking for.*
*(Though I'm still a single dog myself)*
*(End of Chapter)*
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