"What? Chiyo lost her memory?!"
Ōnoki completely failed to mask his reaction, a wide, delighted grin spreading across his face.
Could there actually be such incredible news?
If Chiyo suffered amnesia, didn't that mean she completely forgot how to cast One's Own Life Reincarnation?
Madara's grand resurrection scheme was completely torpedoed right out of the gate!
Who would have thought? He had burned so much energy desperately trying to talk Chiyo out of the deal to no avail, only for the ultimate solution to literally drop right into his lap without him lifting a single finger.
This was divine intervention.
The heavens simply refused to side with Uchiha Madara!
"What the hell are you smiling about? Ōnoki, you beast! You hear that Chiyo suffered a massive head injury and lost her memory, and you're actually happy about it?!" Rōshi barked, his temper instantly flaring.
"I see exactly what this is! Originally, Chiyo flat-out rejected you, leaving you as nothing more than a pathetic stray dog kicking rocks on the roadside with zero chance. But now that she's suffering from amnesia, you actually think you can swoop in and take advantage of her vulnerability, don't you?!"
"No wonder you're smiling like such a massive creep! As the respected Tsuchikage, you'd actually stoop to such dirty, despicable tactics just to score a date?! You truly are a piece of work, Ōnoki!"
Rōshi ruthlessly unloaded on Ōnoki, firing off insults with zero startup frames.
Cursed out so brutally that he was metaphorically drenched in dog blood, Ōnoki's delighted smile instantly froze on his face.
The glaring problem was that he had absolutely no way to explain why he had smiled.
Madara was standing right next to him!
Ōnoki could only grit his teeth, swallow the vicious insults, and sneak a cautious glance at the Uchiha ghost out of the corner of his eye.
Sure enough, Madara's expression was absolutely catastrophic.
The exact millisecond Madara learned Chiyo lost her memory, his mood plummeted straight into the abyss.
He had finally pushed her to the edge of accepting his "revive me first, then I'll revive your family later" contract, only for her brain to conveniently short-circuit.
"Why not find a medical-nin to treat her?" Madara demanded, his voice dropping into a heavy, threatening register.
"We already did. This was the medical-nin's professional recommendation," Sarutobi Hiruzen smoothly intervened.
"Chiyo's memory loss was triggered by severe psychological and physical shock. The localized trauma is in the most delicate, fragile sector of the brain. It simply cannot be repaired using standard, brute-force medical ninjutsu.
One tiny miscalculation in chakra control could drastically worsen her condition, potentially frying her synapses and turning her permanently vegetative.
Therefore, the medical-nin strongly advised a gentle, hands-off approach. We have to let her recover in a stress-free environment and rely on her body's natural self-repair mechanisms. She might spontaneously recover her memories at some point, but forcing it is a death sentence."
As expected of the legendary Professor of the Shinobi World.
Even though Sarutobi Hiruzen wasn't a specialized field medic, he had dabbled enough in the medical texts to weave a seamless airtight lie, trapping Madara perfectly inside its logic.
"..."
Madara didn't ask any follow-up questions.
He didn't bother asking "Did the medic give a timeline?" or "What are the actual statistical odds of recovery?"
He knew those questions were pointless.
If the medics could actually pinpoint those metrics, the atmosphere wouldn't feel this suffocatingly grim.
It was a crushing blow!
Even if they managed to successfully intercept Obito right now, Madara's personal resurrection roadmap was permanently stalled.
And according to the classified intel Madara had dug up over the last few days, One's Own Life Reincarnation strictly demanded the heavy consumption of both chakra and raw life force.
If he just assassinated Chiyo right now and dragged her soul back via Edo Tensei, even if the zombie revived with her memories fully intact, she physically wouldn't be able to cast the jutsu.
Edo Tensei zombies possessed infinite chakra, but absolutely no biological life force.
It operated on the exact same crippling logic as Edo Tensei Nagato: he possessed the Rinnegan and endless chakra, but completely lacked the vitality required to cast the Rinne Tensei.
Hm?
"Ōnoki, you're sneaking glances at me, aren't you?" Madara suddenly frowned, catching the dwarf's shifting eyes.
"I..."
"Ōnoki, you dirty bastard!" Rōshi loudly interrupted, inadvertently saving the Tsuchikage.
"It's bad enough that your own mind is flooded with obscene thoughts, but you actually have the nerve to judge a gentleman by your own petty standards?! Do you honestly think Uchiha Madara would stoop so low as to take advantage of an old woman's vulnerability?!"
Rōshi's aggressive insult successfully dispelled Madara's rising suspicion.
"I seriously look down on you, Ōnoki. Biwako has been dead for over a decade, and I have strictly kept my hands clean. Yet here you are, acting like a rabid dog in heat, using any shameless excuse necessary just to get close to Chiyo," Sarutobi Hiruzen chimed in, gleefully taking the opportunity to kick Ōnoki while he was down.
"Fine, fine, fine! I'm obscene! I'm totally despicable! I admit it!" Ōnoki snapped.
He genuinely couldn't take the verbal beating anymore, so he just threw his hands up and accepted the absolute worst labels.
"Just shut your mouths, step aside, and let us leave!"
Every single second was critically ticking away.
If they arrived even one step too late, Uchiha Obito might successfully absorb the Ten-Tails, plunging the entire shinobi world into an apocalyptic nightmare.
And so, Ōnoki and Uchiha Madara jumped the queue and were instantly warped straight to Amegakure by the Flying Raijin squad.
After dropping the duo off, the squad planned to warp back, link up with Sarutobi Hiruzen and Rōshi out in the desert, and comfortably transfer Granny Chiyo to Kirigakure for her beach vacation.
...
At the exact same time.
Deep within the Land of Rain.
Inside a cold, damp stone room buried deep in a cavern system that absolutely no sensory ninjutsu could penetrate—specifically because Konan had meticulously coated the exterior walls with the Paper Person of God Technique, utilizing the exact same chakra-masking origami she used to hide Nagato's real body in the original timeline.
Uchiha Obito—the man Madara and Ōnoki firmly believed had cast the genjutsu and whose world-ending plan was supposedly inches from success—currently lay flat on a hard, freezing stone slab, his eyes clamped tightly shut.
Aside from the slab and the unconscious rogue ninja, the room appeared entirely empty.
But in reality, this seemingly crude stone bed was a hyper-advanced, real-time biometric monitoring rig engineered by Orochimaru.
Countless micro-cables snaked beneath the stone, extending straight through the wall and into the high-tech monitoring hub next door.
Inside that hub, the team constantly tracked Obito's vitals, completely guaranteeing they would strike the exact millisecond his consciousness booted up.
Standing near the monitors, Makoto felt slightly speechless.
He didn't actually care all that much about Uchiha Obito's fate.
But after reviewing the final psychological warfare script the group had collectively drafted, he couldn't help but notice that even Nohara Rin was backing Obito into a brutal, unforgiving corner.
'Then again, maybe this is just the shinobi world's unique brand of redemption,' Makoto mused. 'If a monster genuinely wants to be saved, they have to confront every single one of their past failures and sins head-on. Otherwise, the 'cleansing' just won't stick.'
Makoto realized he needed to permanently adjust his worldview.
He couldn't keep projecting his own modern moral compass onto the shinobi world's chaotic events.
If he did, he'd constantly misread the room.
"He's coming! He's about to wake up!"
Spotting the biometric alert flashing a harsh red, Konan instantly turned toward Nohara Rin and her backup crew.
"Rin, we'll leave the breach to you. Let the extras take their positions on the floor first, then you make your entrance."
"Mm. Leave it to me." Rin gave a firm, determined nod.
She grabbed a specialized medical kit and quickly rushed out the door.
The rest of the "extra actor squad" immediately tailed right behind her.
The two rooms were barely a few steps apart, so Rin and the extras quickly slipped into the stone cell housing Obito.
After learning the tragic, true history behind the Akatsuki, Rin was deeply motivated to assist Konan.
The Akatsuki's original founding had been so undeniably bright, positive, and brimming with hope for a peaceful future.
Yet her old teammate, Obito, had systematically dragged the organization into a pit of darkness.
And to make it worse, he had the sheer hypocrisy to preach to the very people he corrupted about how "inherently dark and hopeless" the shinobi world was.
Obito didn't ruin the Akatsuki because the world was dark.
The chaotic, bleeding era of the shinobi world was what ruined the Akatsuki, and Obito merely exploited their grief.
Not just the Akatsuki—even Rin's own tragic death had been selectively weaponized by Obito.
He entirely blamed the "cursed era" for his loss, completely stripping away his own agency, which ultimately twisted him into an anti-humanity villain desperate to destroy reality itself.
Now, she was going to deploy the cruelest possible psychological shock to wake this villain up!
As for the extra actor squad? They were literally just tagging along to watch the drama unfold.
"Rin-nee, why exactly did he help Uchiha Madara instead of helping Konoha?" Hanabi Hyūga—one of the designated extras—asked from the doorway, her tone ringing with genuine innocence.
At this exact moment, the biometric monitors confirmed Obito had already regained consciousness.
However, the rogue Uchiha didn't twitch a single muscle, playing dead and lying completely flat on the stone.
"Maybe..." Rin paused, letting the silence hang heavy before delivering the scripted line.
"...because Uchiha Madara was the only one who truly invested in him."