"Don't rush back to the village just yet."
"Madara-sama was the one who stirred Iwagakure and Kumogakure into going to war with Konoha. After this battle, Hokage-sama's prestige will rise to a whole new level."
"Madara-sama is helping Hokage-sama take the initiative and fight when necessary. Hokage-sama really does love peace too much."
"Madara-sama will also use the upheaval from this war to take control of Iwagakure and Kumogakure, turning them completely into a controllable 'external conflict Konoha has yet to resolve'..."
Hi-kun racked his brain trying to make Madara's intentions sound as good as possible.
"For now, you and I can just stay here and watch. Fundamentally, you're already half Tobi, so you can contact me telepathically whenever you want. You can also access the White Zetsu network..."
"There are still some details about returning to the village that I need to explain to you. I'll go over them slowly..."
Obito nodded seriously.
Hi-kun had told him a great deal, but Obito really only retained three points.
First, trust Hokage-sama unconditionally. If there was something he couldn't figure out, go talk to Hokage-sama...
Second, Hi-kun was his brain.
Third, the Great Clan Head was incredibly awkward about everything, so Obito needed to find a way to clear his name!
"Madara-sama, well..."
Hi-kun and Obito sat cross-legged in the shade of a tree.
"You need to pay more attention to his situation. People tend to get stubborn when they grow old, so sometimes he's a little..."
Hi-kun pointed at his own head.
The meaning was obvious: there was something wrong with Madara's head.
But that wasn't exactly something he could say out loud.
Obito immediately understood and nodded in wholehearted agreement.
Because he also felt that the Great Clan Head sometimes seemed almost schizophrenic, with his way of thinking constantly changing...
As for how they were ultimately supposed to clear Madara's name, even someone as capable as Hi-kun found it a headache.
He was almost tempted to actually resurrect Senju Tobirama!
Madara's true identity was bound to come out eventually, so they needed some way to dump all the blame he was carrying onto someone else...
Otherwise, things would become very awkward once he returned to the village...
It wasn't that Hi-kun wanted to complain about Madara behind his back. After serving him for so many years, Hi-kun genuinely felt that Madara's emotional swings could sometimes be even worse than Obito's!
If they didn't get everything properly sorted out beforehand, and some impossible-to-explain situation cropped up later, there was no telling what strange ideas that old man's mind might come up with...
After all, Madara would still occasionally bring up that one time years ago when a little girl had burst into tears after seeing him...
And just as Hi-kun was deep in thought, unable to come up with a reasonable way to rehabilitate Madara's reputation...
An Ōtsutsuki the size of a grain of rice arrived at the Mountains' Graveyard.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki studied Madara's hiding place and let out a soft sigh.
No wonder it had taken even him this long to find it!
If Uzumaki Ashina hadn't appeared, giving Isshiki a lead and prompting him to deliberately observe the White Zetsu network, who knew how long he might have wandered across the shinobi world before finally discovering this place?
Did this guy really hate going outside that much?
What Isshiki didn't know was that Madara used to stay here not for a year or two at a time, but for decades.
It was only after Madara absorbed the power that gives rise to all things from Nagato's Rinnegan-altered body, allowing his condition to improve somewhat, and because training Obito required a wide open space,
that he had finally started leaving the hideout.
As for the other Six Paths puppets, those old fossils naturally had no need to sun themselves either.
Most of the time, they were either training Obito or gathering together to joke around and ruthlessly critique the shinobi world's various hidden villages and Kage.
They had a wonderful time doing it!
"So this is the so-called Demonic Statue of the Outer Path?"
"The Ten-Tails' body and chakra were separated..."
"Kaguya's son really was impressive. Anyone capable of doing something like this would count as powerful even among the Ōtsutsuki. Momoshiki... at the very least, Urashiki and the others couldn't do it."
"No wonder he's a descendant of the demoted 'main family'..."
Isshiki floated in front of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, narrowed his eyes, and muttered inwardly: "Kaguya, you never expected this, did you? You bastard violated the clan's prohibition, yet before I could even deal with you, you suffered the consequences and were sealed away by the descendants you split off from yourself!"
Whenever he thought about it, Isshiki couldn't help feeling that his luck had been truly terrible.
When the Ōtsutsuki Clan planted Divine Trees, they generally operated in pairs.
One member of the main family and one guardian. The guardian could roughly be understood as the equivalent of the Hyūga Clan's branch family.
When planting a Divine Tree, the "branch family" member would use their own body as a catalyst to accelerate the process.
When they first came to the shinobi world, Isshiki was the main-family member, while Kaguya served as the "guardian."
The problem was that Kaguya, this supposed "branch-family member" and "guardian," was extremely unusual.
She hadn't been born into that role.
She had been demoted into it after repeatedly failing to meet expectations in both temperament and efficiency!
Kaguya had once possessed first-rate talent even by Ōtsutsuki standards, but mentally, she was simply far too incompatible with the clan's general disposition. She repeatedly botched missions...
And so she was demoted to "guardian" and paired with Isshiki.
Isshiki stared at the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and sighed once again.
"If that hadn't been the case, how could I possibly have been ambushed by a mere 'guardian'?"
If it had been some other Ōtsutsuki branch-family member, such as Kinshiki, who was paired with Momoshiki, Isshiki wouldn't have cared in the slightest about the possibility of being ambushed, because even if an attack landed, it wouldn't have meant anything.
There was a fundamental difference in their levels.
But of all people, it had to be Kaguya!
To use an analogy, it was basically like "branch-family Hinata counter-killing main-family Neji"...
"That shinobi named Sarutobi Hiruzen said something rather good."
Isshiki had made a trip to Konoha. Although he hadn't managed to obtain Sarutobi Hiruzen, he had read quite a few things posted on the village notice boards, and many of them had struck him as sensible.
"Know shame, then turn it into courage!"
"I was once overwhelmed by the extraordinary power hidden within this planet and actually underestimated a 'failure' like you, someone who had been demoted..."
"But as long as I endure this setback and turn its bitter consequences into motivation and a warning to myself..."
"I will progress even faster than I did at my former peak!"
Ambition filled Isshiki's eyes.
"I will establish myself deeply in the shinobi world, obtain everything that surpasses those of my generation, and even claim the treasures of the supreme being of the Ōtsutsuki Clan..."
"Still, this planet really is unnervingly strange."
Over the past thousand years in the shinobi world, Isshiki had spent part of his time recovering from his injuries.
At the same time, he had also discovered that this planet seemed to contain traces of the Ōtsutsuki dating back more than ten thousand years, far earlier than when he and Kaguya had arrived to plant the Divine Tree...
And some of those traces concerned the "shadow" of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, Shibai, the strongest clan head in its entire history.
It was very possible that this figure had died here!
Because of that, Isshiki had once become obsessed with this enormous treasure.
He had spent a very long time searching across the shinobi world like a headless fly, yet had found nothing conclusive. All he had accumulated was one clue after another.
But after watching Sarutobi Hiruzen fight Hōzuki Gengetsu and Mū, Isshiki had suddenly awakened to something.
A mere mortal without even an overtly visible special bloodline was steadily raising the level of his own life step by step, using clumsy and laughable methods to imitate the Kekkei Mōra he had imagined.
And yet, even through such methods, he had still achieved tangible results.
Meanwhile, Isshiki himself claimed to be searching for the god of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, yet after centuries he had accomplished nothing, and even his vessel's lifespan was nearly exhausted!
Perhaps putting one's head down and steadily getting things done was the highest form of understanding after all.
"Even if I obtained that person's remains in my current condition, what could I actually do with them? Even at my peak, I wouldn't be able to absorb them immediately. I'd need a long period of study..."
"This is another lesson!"
"I can't aim too high. I have to advance one step at a time. I absolutely cannot allow my mindset to become inferior even to that of a lower life-form!"
For no apparent reason, the image of Sarutobi Hiruzen surfaced in Isshiki's mind.
The proud Ōtsutsuki sighed again.
What an excellent vessel!
If it were Sarutobi Hiruzen, Isshiki was even thinking that perhaps after taking over his body, they could still discuss training together...
Shinobi were unquestionably lower life-forms, but when it came to Hiruzen, who had managed to independently imitate aspects of the Ōtsutsuki, Isshiki was willing to give him a measure of respect.
Treatment befitting half an Ōtsutsuki!
"Unfortunately, Kaguya's son chose Sarutobi Hiruzen, so I can only make do with this half-dead vessel..."
Isshiki looked toward Madara, who was lost in thought nearby, and curled his lip.
He would just have to settle for it!
Compared to Hiruzen's body, Madara did possess the so-called "power that gives rise to all things," but one look was enough to see that there were deficiencies inside him, and his upper limit wasn't particularly high.
He was still following the Ōtsutsuki bloodline route, which held nothing novel for Isshiki.
Hiruzen's "body constructed through sealing techniques" and his "budget version of the Kekkei Mōra" were far more interesting to him!
"But he's still better than Jigen as a vessel."
"I can't repeat the mistakes I made before. If I keep being picky, I'll end up ruining everything!"
His enemy was no longer just Kaguya.
The Sage of Six Paths felt far more threatening to Isshiki than Kaguya ever had...
That woman had only truly risen to the occasion once in her entire life, and Isshiki had simply been unlucky enough to be the one she did it against.
After that, she had gone right back to being as incompetent as ever, even failing to maintain a proper relationship with the descendants she herself had created...
No matter how great her talent was, with a mind like that, she'd never accomplish anything in her entire life!
Isshiki steadied himself.
"Being able to find another vessel for reincarnation in the shinobi world is already fortunate enough..."
"This one will do!"
Naturally, it would have been best to solve everything in a single step.
But with the Sage of Six Paths interfering, he could only use Uchiha Madara first to improve his situation.
Still the size of a grain of rice and concealing his presence, Isshiki slowly entered Madara's body through his ear, then quietly and covertly implanted the power known as Kāma inside him!
Kāma contained all kinds of information and power belonging to Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
Once the data extraction process was complete, Uchiha Madara would become Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
Madara himself, naturally, would become the sacrifice for Isshiki's rebirth.
During this process, Kāma would also provide Madara with new power.
Every time that power was used—or if the vessel failed to resist—the extraction process would gradually accelerate. This was also part of the mechanism designed to lure the vessel into succumbing.
As the extraction progressed, Isshiki would gradually become able to interfere with Madara's thoughts and control his actions...
Until he finally became the master of this body!
Isshiki slowly closed his eyes.
The power of Kāma flowed through Madara's body and began to take root.
Near the spinal canal at the back of Madara's neck, an inconspicuous black mark gradually appeared.
This time, Isshiki had decided to slow down.
He would first use Madara's identity as cover, establish an organization in the shinobi world capable of probing the various factions and gathering intelligence for him, and only then proceed further.
"Battles between shinobi are battles of intelligence..."
Isshiki murmured softly from within Madara's body.
"There is truth in that. Even for the Ōtsutsuki Clan, intelligence remains an extremely important factor."
Madara, one of the masterminds operating behind the scenes of the shinobi world, had become active and exposed his traces.
And by doing so, he had attracted an even deeper hidden presence: Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
The shadows behind the entire shinobi world almost resembled a dark forest...
Every player was carefully concealing their movements.
Once someone exposed themselves, unless they possessed overwhelming strength, they could easily be swallowed up by someone else without ever realizing it...
There was just one thing Isshiki didn't know.
Even without the Sage of Six Paths, in Isshiki's current condition, if he had entered Hiruzen's body, things would not have gone nearly as smoothly as they had inside Madara.
To an Ōtsutsuki, the sealing techniques inside Hiruzen's body would certainly be crude.
If Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei was a prison cell forged from hardened steel, then the seals inside Hiruzen were more like several dozen layers of heavy-duty tape wrapped around the prisoner.
Primitive, certainly.
But with enough layers, even Isshiki in his weakened state would have had a miserable time dealing with them...
Moreover, those seals were also a tangible manifestation of the Will of Fire.
There was an old saying: those who follow the right path gain many allies, while those who abandon it are left with few.
That Sarutobi Hiruzen, who upheld both the Will of Fire and Ninshū, had drawn the attention of the Sage of Six Paths could be called coincidence.
But in another sense, it was inevitable.
"What's going on..."
Madara suddenly shivered, yet at the same time felt a warm current surging through his body.
He raised his head toward the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and nodded thoughtfully.
"Has my extraction of the power that gives rise to all things from the Demonic Statue finally begun to make progress? I thought it still wouldn't be enough to restore my foundation, but perhaps the effects were simply gradual. Looks like luck has finally started favoring me..."
"Or did Hiruzen's performance inspire me? Did it get my blood boiling again..."
Madara stared at his own hands and smiled faintly.
Either way, this was good news!
A young body was something he had obsessed over for decades...
Feeling Madara's state of mind, Isshiki smiled as well.
Exactly...
Embrace his power.
Accelerate the extraction!
Far away elsewhere in the shinobi world,
the Sage of Six Paths, who was making ramen, picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his forehead before smiling as well.
He shared countless subtle connections with every reincarnation of Indra and Asura...
If Isshiki wandered freely across the shinobi world, even the Sage of Six Paths would have difficulty pinpointing his exact location.
But by voluntarily seeking out Uchiha Madara, Isshiki had instead fixed his own position in place...
"Tch..."
"Looks like I'll need to make a few minor adjustments..."
"But how exactly should I adjust things? That's the real problem. I still have to pay attention to fairness and balance..."
The Sage of Six Paths fell into serious thought.
"Let's go. It's time for us to mediate the shinobi world!"
Madara wrapped Tobi around himself. Feeling renewed vitality flowing through his body, he swept one hand outward.
"It's time for the Crimson Organization to formally take control of Iwagakure and Kumogakure. We'll go have a talk with Sarutobi Hiruzen!"
At that very moment, Hiruzen was racing across the battlefield when he saw the Third Raikage and Ōnoki approaching him.
He suddenly froze.
Ōnoki and the Raikage exchanged a glance, both looking confused.
Wait...
Why did he look so surprised to see them?
But Hiruzen's brows only furrowed more deeply.
Why was there suddenly a woman's voice speaking beside his ear?
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