"!!!"
"Who is that?!"
"What's going on?!"
Hikaku Uchiha and the others had never seen a complete form of Susanoo.
No, more accurately, they had never even seen an incomplete Susanoo before!
There were already very few Uchiha in this era who could awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan, and having the Mangekyō Sharingan did not mean one could necessarily manifest Susanoo!
And what was now before their eyes was the complete form of Susanoo used by Madara Uchiha, a man who possessed the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and even the Rinnegan!
That legendary power, like a mountain god or tengu, instantly pushed every Uchiha present to the peak of alertness.
They drew their weapons and activated their Sharingan.
The young Madara Uchiha leaped in front of his three younger brothers, drawing his ninja blade with one hand while holding his brothers back with the other.
"What the hell is that?!!"
Without a Sharingan for the time being, from such a distance, and with the future Madara Uchiha standing inside Susanoo, the young Madara Uchiha could not make out the figure within.
Of course, even if he had seen him clearly, he still would not have recognized him.
Hikaku Uchiha's three-tomoe Sharingan, however, at least allowed him to see the figure wrapped in dark-blue Susanoo, as well as that pair of crimson Sharingan glowing against the light.
That distinctive pattern.
Sure enough, it was another pair of Mangekyō Sharingan.
Unlike the two teenage ninjas beside him who had also awakened the Mangekyō, Sasuke Uchiha and Obito Uchiha, that adult ninja carried the unique aura of an overwhelmingly powerful man. Hikaku Uchiha and the others did not even notice the two people standing beside him. They could only stare blankly, every hair on their bodies standing on end as their instincts screamed at them to fear him, defend themselves, and even submit to that man.
At the time, Madara Uchiha, Izuna Uchiha, and Tajima Uchiha had searched that area but could not find the bodies of Madara's three younger brothers anywhere.
As Madara Uchiha grew more and more agitated, his expression darkening to the point that it would make children cry and even his own father, Tajima Uchiha, did not want to look directly at him, Izuna Uchiha reminded them to check the destination of that mission first.
Perhaps their return to this world had changed fate, and someone had rescued the three of them.
Since they had not found the bodies, the worst-case scenario was that they had been captured by the Senju.
With Madara Uchiha's current strength, going alone to the Senju to take them back would hardly be a problem.
Even if Tobirama Senju and Hashirama Senju from the same era as them had returned to the Senju as well, Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha were not afraid of the two of them.
Besides, Madara was almost certain that if he was doing this to save his younger brother's life, Hashirama would understand.
"Let's go to our secret hideout on the mountain first. If they aren't there, then we'll go to the Senju Clan."
Once the decision was made, Madara Uchiha "piloted" Susanoo straight to the Uchiha Clan's mountain location from his memories. And because he found it troublesome, he flew directly into the middle of the mountain. The enormous Susanoo, vast enough to blot out the sky, blocked out most of the light.
After being resurrected, Madara Uchiha, like the First and Second Hokage, had regained the physique he possessed back during the founding of Konoha.
By calculation, he was roughly the same age as the Adult Kakashi of the present and the Adult Obito who was currently being dragged around parallel worlds by Obito Ōtsutsuki.
Madara Uchiha spotted his younger self at a glance.
Then, behind him, he found the people he had been searching for.
His three younger brothers, forever frozen in his memory at nine and six years old.
He dismissed Susanoo and led his father Tajima and his younger brother Izuna straight toward his younger self.
Izuna Uchiha looked at his brother as a child, his eyes full of irrepressible joy.
If he had not been afraid of scaring his brother in this era, he might have tried picking him up just to see what it felt like. Of course, that was assuming he did not have to consider the feelings of the brother beside him.
The young Madara Uchiha looked at his father, who seemed to have aged more than ten years all at once, and several huge question marks burst into his mind. The biggest question was this: who exactly was that fierce-looking man who could make his father walk half a step behind him?
That enormous thing made of chakra just now belonged to that guy, didn't it?
Seeing that man stride straight toward him, the young Madara Uchiha tightened his grip on his ninja blade.
If his aura merely felt somewhat incompatible with Sasuke Uchiha's, then he and the man before him were practically born to clash.
"Stop! Who are you?!"
Madara Uchiha glanced at his younger self. This feeling...
It was beyond strange.
Unlike the young Madara Uchiha, he did not feel especially incompatible with his younger self. At most, it reminded him of when he had saved that brat Obito back then, thinking the kid looked foolish but rather amusing.
"This has nothing to do with you. Move."
Compared to his younger self, however, Madara was far more eager to take another close look at Myoko Uchiha, Togakushi Uchiha, and Kurohi Uchiha, whom the young Madara Uchiha was shielding behind him. He even wanted to touch them, just to make sure.
The young Madara Uchiha naturally refused to move. Who knew what this man, who clearly was no decent sort, wanted with his younger brothers?
Even knowing he was no match for him, the young Madara Uchiha would never back down, because he was the older brother, and he had to protect his younger brothers.
The two Madara Uchihas from two different eras, one grown and one young, faced off against each other.
This feeling...
It was no less intense than when the young Obito confronted the Masked Man earlier.
No, it might even have surpassed it.
Neither Naruto nor Sasuke was good at making snide comments, but this scene was full of things to comment on.
Young Kakashi was very good at sharp-tongued remarks, but that was generally limited to targeting Obito Uchiha. Asking him to take a few jabs at Madara Uchiha? He and Madara were not that close.
Minato and Kakashi also did not think trying to mediate at a time like this would do any good, so they simply treated it as entertainment.
Yes, with a scene like this, holding back laughter was honestly difficult.
The three Uchiha boys Naruto and the others had rescued looked at the tall man confronting their brother. For some reason, they were not particularly afraid.
Myoko Uchiha looked at the father standing beside the tall man, then at the clan member with the small ponytail, and could not help tugging at his brother's sleeve. "Brother, don't you think that person looks a lot like Izuna?"
Izuna Uchiha raised an eyebrow. In his memory, Myoko had always been sharp, both emotionally and intellectually.
After Myoko's reminder, the young Madara Uchiha also looked at him and began comparing him to the youngest brother in his memories.
"He really does look like Izuna."
The young Madara Uchiha looked at his father. "Could it be..."
He did not dare finish the sentence.
Could it be that his father had been cheated on? Was this man in front of him actually Izuna's biological father? His age seemed to match perfectly too!
"Now that you mention it," Kurohi whispered, "that person looks a lot like you too, Madara-nii-san."
The young Madara Uchiha:
I'm finished...
Young Obito Uchiha quietly complained to Naruto, "Do you think the Madara Uchiha of this era thinks that old geezer is his real dad? Otherwise, why would he have that look on his face?"
"No way, right?"
Madara Uchiha heard the two of them and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"What are you doing here?"
His three younger brothers, who should have died at the hands of Senju ninjas, were standing here alive and well. No matter what anyone said, he would never believe it had nothing to do with the people before him.
Naruto indignantly pointed at Myoko Uchiha. "This guy! He's way too cunning! He said he wanted to repay us and insisted on taking us to the nearest village nearby, but he tricked us into coming all the way here!"
Myoko, despite being accused, was not angry. On the contrary, after traveling with them, he had come to appreciate this straightforward fool quite a bit. Especially after hearing from his clansman Sasuke that it was Naruto who had insisted on going upstream to check, which was how he and Kurohi had been saved.
"You two just trust people too easily. Be more careful next time. What would you do if you really ran into someone who turned around and bit you?"
Young Kakashi mocked Naruto and Obito. "Don't worry. These two idiots will definitely fall for it again."
"That's because Obito and Naruto can't ignore someone who needs help~" Rin was not teasing them. Her tone showed that she actually liked that part of their personalities.
"Rin, you spoil them too much."
"It's fine. Minato-sensei and Kakashi are here too, after all~"
The young Madara Uchiha was still absorbed in the question of whether he and Izuna were truly their father's biological sons, while Madara Uchiha stared at Naruto Uzumaki and Young Obito for a moment.
Naruto was the next reincarnation of Ashura Chakra after Hashirama.
Perhaps to those who were reincarnations of Indra Chakra, there was an innate pull between them. At the very least, after hearing that Naruto had saved his three younger brothers, Madara found this kid much more pleasing to the eye.
As for Obito, or rather, as he looked at the Young Obito before him from the Kannabi Bridge parallel world, he thought of the Adult Obito in the mission scroll world, the young man he had harmed so badly.
Ever since Madara Uchiha's resurrection, after learning about Black Zetsu from Minato Namikaze, even if he did not deliberately think about it, a trace of guilt inevitably lingered in his heart.
"Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Obito Uchiha."
"Uzumaki?!"
The young Madara Uchiha, Hikaku, Madara's three younger brothers, and the other Uchiha clan members from the Warring States Period were all stunned.
They looked at the blond Naruto in shock.
They had originally thought these people were household servants who had escaped from the Uzumaki Clan. They never expected Naruto to actually be Naruto Uzumaki.
"Your surname is Uzumaki?! You're from the Uzumaki Clan?!!"
Naruto did not care at all. "That's not a big deal, is it?" He and Young Obito looked at Madara Uchiha. "What is it?" Surely he had not come just to reveal Naruto's surname.
Since the two had already traveled back to the era of Konoha's founding, their impression of Madara Uchiha was actually not bad.
Then, after experiencing the life illusion of "Naruto Uzumaki," their impression of the Madara Uchiha from the Fourth Shinobi World War was that he was hateful, but also pitiful and tragic.
"Thank you for saving my brothers."
Madara Uchiha stared fixedly at Naruto and the others with a grim face.
If they had not been to the era of Konoha's founding and learned that the adult Madara Uchiha, like many Uchiha, sealed away his emotions, or rather, did not dare reveal them because he feared the pain of loss, Naruto and the others would definitely have thought Madara was not truly thanking them.
But precisely because they knew that the true Uchiha Clan was actually far richer in emotion, the members of Team Minato and Team Kakashi had no doubt at all about how much feeling was carried in Madara Uchiha's "thank you" at that moment.
That was true of Madara Uchiha, who had lived alone until the age of eighty for the sake of the Eye of the Moon Plan. And the young Madara Uchiha, who had originally been caught up in the thought of "Could this man in front of me really be my own father?" suddenly heard him say what?
Thank you for saving "my brothers"?