"Hi-kun, you performed well today..."
Inside the Mountains' Graveyard, Madara remotely communicated with Hi-kun.
"How is the situation with the Sky Ninja Village?"
"Madara-sama, we've already completely obtained all of their intelligence! All that remains is for you to personally take control of their leader! Though even if they work around the clock, it'll still take some time before their military strength fully recovers..."
Hi-kun's cheerful voice rang out.
Receiving praise from Madara made Hi-kun incredibly happy.
And because this was the first time he had ever been assigned a task that required him to "use his brain," it fundamentally distinguished him from the other White Zetsu.
Hi-kun had a dream.
As he became smarter and smarter, one day he would finally understand the ultimate mystery of why Madara-sama and the Hokage—who clearly should have gotten along perfectly—insisted on clashing with each other in such an awkward way...
In his heart, this had already become a life question even more important than "What does poop feel like?"
It was just that Hi-kun did not dare ask Madara directly, so he kept it bottled up inside and planned to slowly research it on his own...
"As for the leader of the Sky Ninja Village, he can be controlled whenever we wish..."
Madara nodded slightly.
"There is no real need for that village to continue existing. The Sky Ninja Village's only remaining purpose is to remind Hiruzen that the chain of hatred in the shinobi world can never truly be severed..."
"I will make them empty out every last bit of their reserves and produce every category of combat ninja tool at any cost. Otherwise, even under my command, sending them out would only make Hiruzen laugh!"
In truth, Madara could also have directly controlled the real Genji.
The reason he did not was because he felt that would be too crude and inelegant.
No matter how powerful his genjutsu was, controlling someone's thoughts required constant adjustments.
A mere Genji was not worth wasting the energy he needed for studying Hiruzen and restoring his own body...
Besides, as long as something was a "technique," traces would always remain behind.
But the beauty of an open scheme lay precisely in how traceless it was—something no genjutsu could compare to. Everything merely flowed naturally with circumstance.
Hi-kun blinked.
From Madara's words, he sensed a slightly strange undertone...
What did he mean by saying the village had no reason to exist anymore?
Hi-kun very much wanted to ask, Was it because they once attacked Konoha without being under your control?
'Madara-sama's logic is really strange...' Hi-kun muttered inwardly.
"And how are Black Zetsu and Tobi doing?" Madara asked again.
"That kid Obito is still the same as always. He trains with Kakashi and Might Guy every day, then goes home and grins stupidly at pictures of the Hokage, helps old ladies cross the street, stuff like that..."
Hi-kun pondered for a moment.
"Oh right, he also keeps going to see Shisui and Seisui!"
The moment Seisui was mentioned, Madara became noticeably more interested.
Aside from Hiruzen and Mito, Seisui was the last shinobi in Konoha capable of drawing his attention...
After all, he resembled his younger brother quite a bit, and his chakra also seemed to possess countless subtle connections to Izuna's chakra.
"Hiruzen's most fatal weakness is that he does not understand the Uchiha!"
Madara burst into laughter.
"He actually allowed Seisui to join Root. By this point in the game, the advantage on every front is already in my hands..."
"I know exactly what he was thinking..."
"It's not that he had malicious intentions. He simply wanted Danzō and the Uchiha to reconcile, hoping Seisui, as Danzō's disciple, would improve relations between the Uchiha and the village..."
"On the surface, that sounds fine. But Seisui is an outstanding Uchiha—how sensitive do you think someone like him would be?"
"Even though Hiruzen arranged some little fireside talk and restricted Danzō and Root's actions, how could that fool, who only knows how to clumsily imitate Senju Tobirama, possibly behave himself?"
"He will absolutely try to influence Seisui with his own crude way of thinking!"
"And that kind of low-level darkness will undoubtedly accelerate Seisui's doubts toward Konoha. It is exposing Konoha's ugliest side directly before the eyes of an Uchiha!"
"Not only that, Hiruzen also brought that Uchiha Yashiro into Root. More and more Uchiha are sinking into darkness. A situation like this could only ever be controlled by Izuna himself..."
Madara spoke with absolute certainty.
But there was another thought hidden in his mind...
Madara was certain Izuna's chakra existed within Seisui.
What he could not determine was whether Izuna's chakra still retained autonomous consciousness—and Madara hoped it did.
Because if that were the case, then everything Danzō did would become perfect evidence proving the necessity of the Eye of the Moon Plan!
And honestly, if Hiruzen knew Madara's opinions regarding the Uchiha, he probably would not think Madara was wrong either.
One of the greatest difficulties in managing the Uchiha Clan was the extreme instability of their emotions.
People like Yashiro, who had received kindness and favors, were relatively manageable. But others constantly experienced emotional fluctuations and shifts in thinking.
Today they might seem perfectly normal, only to start entertaining bizarre logic again tomorrow. They were difficult to observe and even harder to predict...
Managing them was simply exhausting.
At minimum, the clan would need to be immersed in the Will of Fire for years before a relatively stable ideological imprint could form. Until then, the Uchiha would always remain an unstable element within Konoha...
And that was also the true reason Hiruzen resurrected Senju Tobirama.
Only by becoming an Uchiha himself could one closely perceive every unstable factor within the clan.
Looking across Konoha—and even the entire shinobi world—only Tobirama possessed both the capability and the interest necessary to wholeheartedly take on such a thankless task and execute it perfectly...
As long as Tobirama existed, Hiruzen would not need to personally deal with the troublesome complexity of the Uchiha...
Seisui would handle it himself!
"Hi-kun, what do you think of my analysis? Seisui will never be able to endure Danzō's darkness..."
Madara spoke with visible satisfaction.
"Hiruzen is still far too inexperienced!"
This time, Hi-kun did not complain internally at all. Instead, he answered seriously: "Madara-sama truly possesses remarkable insight!"
There genuinely was logic and reasoning behind it...
But the entire premise depended on one thing—that Danzō's darkness truly outweighed "Seisui"...
"And how are those brats Nagato and the others doing?" Madara continued asking.
"Well..." Hi-kun scratched his head.
"Black Zetsu has been following them the whole time. You said that if anything unexpected happened, we should use your power to retrieve Nagato's Rinnegan again."
"According to the last report, the situation seems to have changed somewhat. Hanzō has recently been aggressively consolidating the various organizations within Amegakure, and Nagato's group has also attracted attention."
"And they've also been heavily promoting friendly relations with Konoha throughout Amegakure, saying the Second Shinobi World War was started by Sunagakure and Iwagakure. It feels like they're trying to establish deep cooperation with Konoha..."
"It seems the Rinnegan may no longer remain hidden. Should we perhaps—"
Madara waved his hand dismissively.
"There you go again, getting impatient... Hi-kun, you are different from the other White Zetsu. I hope you will strive to become someone like Tobi."
Hi-kun nodded solemnly and listened with complete focus to Madara-sama's profound teachings.
"With Black Zetsu and the White Zetsu around, even if the Rinnegan gets exposed in front of Hanzō, it won't really matter..."
"In fact, I would rather Hanzō and the others make a move against Nagato! Let them kill all the companions around him, so that weak-willed but talented brat can finally understand the cruelty of the shinobi world..."
Madara recalled the three years he spent watching Frog TV and the corner of his mouth twitched.
As expected of Hiruzen's disciple...
That brat called Jiraiya truly was an unbelievable specimen among shinobi...
After discovering the Rinnegan, he was only shocked for a moment before acting as if he had never seen it at all. Not the slightest greed arose within him. Instead, he honestly spent three full years teaching Nagato and the others ninjutsu...
And after returning, he never even reported it to Konoha, as though the Rinnegan were nothing more than cabbages sold on the roadside!
Madara had thought about it for a very long time, yet still could not understand Jiraiya's logic...
What exactly had been going through his mind?
One could only say that when it came to stubbornness, the orthodox heir of Mount Myōboku was not inferior to the Uchiha in the slightest.
Madara sighed softly, then continued analyzing things for Hi-kun.
"Hanzō that brat was actually a shinobi worth acknowledging back in the day. But after growing old and losing his fighting spirit, he gradually became nothing more than a man desperately clinging to life..."
"People like him have already abandoned their ninja way and their dreams. All they think about now is consolidating the laughable power in their hands."
"Hanzō making genuine peace with Konoha? At most, he only wants to exploit them..."
A sharp light flashed through Madara's eyes.
"If Hanzō lacks the courage to seize the Rinnegan, then I'll simply let Danzō learn about it! Since his relationship with Amegakure is merely one of mutual exploitation, and given how he so clumsily imitates Tobirama, he will absolutely think of every possible method to take the Rinnegan for himself."
"And once that happens, Nagato will completely become mine to use."
Madara's original candidate for the "proxy" plan had actually been Nagato.
Although he had now decided to personally take action, if he could still bring Nagato under his command, then compared to Obito, the cost-performance ratio would honestly be even better...
After all, Nagato's body—after years of being transformed by the Rinnegan as he matured—was the perfect vessel for reviving him!
The only reason Madara chose another proxy was because he had absolutely no way to deal with Jiraiya...