Kaguya fell into deep thought.
In fact, back on the battlefield, when Hiruzen had silenced Konoha's roaring ranks with a single wave of his hand, Kaguya had already wanted to ask how her vessel had managed it...
So people really could be made to obey orders without question?
Back in Kaguya's day, she couldn't even keep the White Zetsu under control and had still been forced to endure their impertinent questions.
Apparently, even a thousand years ago, White Zetsu had already possessed an intense curiosity about what the urge to defecate felt like—and that curiosity had survived all the way to the present day...
"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama..."
"You had to see such a pathetic side of me..."
During his hellish training at the Mountains' Graveyard, Obito had never once complained about being tired, much less cried, despite being surrounded by several Kage and the Shura of the Shinobi World.
Yet the moment he returned to the village, his composure crumbled.
In the emotionally barren shinobi world, genuine concern was like a blazing fire, always capable of easily scorching its way into someone's heart...
Hiruzen waved a hand and said with a warm smile, "I was the same when I was young, Obito..."
"I was pretty skinny back then, so people called me Monkey. Hashirama-sama even gave me private lessons, but I still couldn't learn what he was teaching me. I'd go home exhausted and frustrated, and I cried too."
"There's nothing wrong with a shinobi crying. Sometimes you're just letting out all the exhaustion you've been carrying inside."
Hiruzen's words seemed almost magical. Obito's sobbing quickly subsided. He wiped his damp eyes somewhat clumsily and took a deep breath.
'Hokage-sama had trouble learning ninjutsu too?'
'He even cried!'
But hearing Hiruzen say those things didn't diminish the almost godlike image Obito had of the Hokage.
If anything, hearing such ordinary stories from his past made Obito feel that the distance between them had narrowed another step...
They now had a personal connection.
"Hokage-sama..."
Obito carefully chose his words as the Mangekyō Sharingan in his eyes slowly turned.
"When I was fighting Iwagakure, enemy jōnin like Taiseki ambushed us..."
"Kakashi, Rin, and I fought them, but they drove us into a minefield. I stepped on an explosive tag, and nearly half my body stopped working. Kakashi had to carry me..."
"Later, Kinkaku, Ginkaku, Ashina, and the Second Raikage came to rescue us. They killed those Iwa shinobi, and then I was taken to an underground cavern."
"The place that's now been revealed as the Crimson Organization's base..."
At this point, Obito suddenly grew nervous again.
After all, whatever else might be said about it, the Crimson Organization was openly opposing Konoha.
The confrontation between the two sides had forced Hiruzen to resurrect Senju Hashirama with Impure World Reincarnation...
The outcome had been good, but the motives and logic behind everything that led up to it were certainly questionable.
Even Obito himself had to admit that a Konoha shinobi who had disappeared for more than a year, spent all that time with them, and then returned to the village with a whole arsenal of new abilities looked extremely suspicious...
Being subjected to an investigation was only natural.
Obito could accept all of that.
But Hiruzen, as the current head of the Hokage's line, had shown such genuine concern for someone two generations removed from him that Obito instead found himself worrying about what he might lose...
What was he supposed to do if everything suddenly turned upside down?!
For a moment, Obito finally understood why Great Clan Head Madara hadn't forbidden him from returning to the village...
Because once he came back, there were many things he simply wouldn't be able to explain cleanly.
Madara and the Uchiha Clan were especially deeply intertwined within the village at present. If Madara's existence and everything he had done were exposed, many things would become extremely troublesome...
One wrong move could trigger a chain reaction and bring everything crashing down.
Yet Hiruzen's expression didn't change. He continued smiling encouragingly and gave Obito a slight nod, signaling for him not to worry and simply continue...
Obito froze for a moment.
Under the Hokage's gentle gaze, the tangled emotions in his heart seemed to melt away, and before he realized it, he was smiling too.
'Right. What am I afraid of?'
'With Hokage-sama here, even the hardest things to explain can be explained clearly...'
'I'm not afraid!'
"Over the past year or so, Mū, Gengetsu-ojisan, the Raikage, Kinkaku, Ginkaku, and Ashina-ojisan have taught me a lot about fighting. I've been training until I'm exhausted every day..."
"Since the explosive tag blew away half my body, the Crimson Organization filled in the missing parts with something similar to Hashirama-sama's cells..."
Obito rolled up his sleeve, revealing a white arm.
It was part of Tobi...
Kaguya listened solemnly to Obito's confession, then paused in surprise.
She was beginning to realize that she might not understand White Zetsu at all...
First there was Senju Hashirama, who was practically like a God Tree that had come to life, and now there was Obito, a sort of "White Zetsu specialized in advanced space–time techniques"...
Whatever the case, using the power of White Zetsu and the God Tree this way was undeniably far more effective than the White Zetsu army she had created herself, which had relied on sheer numbers...
Had she really been doing it wrong back then?
Kaguya hadn't been in Konoha for long, yet she had already accomplished something the Sage of Six Paths had failed to achieve in a thousand years...
She had made the progenitor of chakra reflect on her own mistakes!
Especially once Kaguya took a closer look. All those shinobi implanted with Hashirama's cells could essentially be regarded as individual White Zetsu. Wasn't that basically the same thing she had done back then?
If the Sage of Six Paths or Hiruzen heard that, they would undoubtedly ask her exactly what part of it was supposed to be the same.
But that didn't stop Kaguya from seeing herself in it...
"Oh? They filled in your missing body with something similar to Hashirama-sama's cells?"
Hiruzen paused, took hold of Obito's arm, and sensed the vitality within it.
There really was something to that claim!
Its vitality was almost comparable to genuine Hashirama cells, but it was far more orderly...
Hiruzen thought for a moment.
"Obito, find some time to have Orochimaru examine you. Our village has made progress in its research into Hashirama-sama's cells as well."
"First, we should check whether there are any hidden problems with your body. Second, I'd like to see whether these unusual cells in your body might be useful to the village's research..."
Obito nodded without hesitation.
"I understand, Hokage-sama!"
In truth, Obito really was somewhat uneasy about half his body having been replaced with Tobi. After all, this had been the handiwork of the Shura of the Shinobi World.
From what Obito knew of Madara...
There was basically no chance Madara had secretly tampered with him, but there was also no way he hadn't left himself some kind of contingency.
That was simply how Great Clan Head Madara was...
Constantly swinging back and forth between scheming mastermind and bold, open-handed warrior. You could never tell which version of him you were going to get...
"On the surface, the Crimson Organization seems to be pursuing peace..."
"But the way they operate is strange. Those reincarnated former Kage all have special puppet bodies. Not only do they share their vision, each of them also possesses a strange ability."
"Human Path, Asura Path, Deva Path, Naraka Path, Animal Path, Preta Path..."
Obito spilled out all six abilities of the Rinnegan in one breath. Rather than resorting to something as bizarre as carving a coded message onto a toad's back, he hurriedly rattled off example after example...
After all, he trained with those old fossils every day.
And whenever those old fossils from the Warring States era started arguing among themselves about the shinobi world's problems, things sometimes escalated into actual fights, complete with the abilities Madara had enhanced them with. Obito had watched often enough that naturally he'd figured out how those abilities worked.
Hiruzen listened quietly.
The existence of those Kage alone would probably have spelled disaster for Konoha if the village had encountered them ten years earlier. They might even have flattened the entire village in a single assault...
Uzumaki Ashina's combination of attractive and repulsive forces with Fūinjutsu, in particular, could practically be called a "mini-Hiruzen" fighting style...
An ordinary shinobi would have virtually no way to deal with him. Even many members of Konoha's council would struggle against him.
But in today's Konoha, although these Warring States-era monsters of the Crimson Organization were still troublesome, the village's other shinobi were no less formidable...
Konoha had plenty of monsters of its own.
"These eyes of mine..."
Obito hesitated.
"They were awakened because someone set me up. They lied and told me you'd died. I became extremely emotional, and that triggered the Hell Viewing Technique they'd planted inside me beforehand..."
"I saw you, Kakashi, and Rin die, and that's when I awakened this Mangekyō. Its ability is called Kamui. It lets me manipulate space."
As he spoke, Obito worried that Hiruzen might have trouble understanding his bizarre dōjutsu, so he stretched out his intangible arm and waved it back and forth through the desk...
Then he sucked the teacup on the desk into Kamui, pulled it back out of the other dimension, and returned it to its place.
Hiruzen couldn't help laughing.
Kamui's power was beyond question, but Obito's clumsy yet earnest demonstration made the Hokage feel as though he were watching a simple magic trick...
'One ball on the left, two on the right... and presto! Now guess how many are under the cup?'
Hiruzen had absolutely no doubt that Obito really would use his Mangekyō to entertain children...
"So it works by exploiting overlapping spaces?"
Hiruzen considered the mechanics of Kamui and couldn't help feeling somewhat surprised.
This was a spatial ability even more advanced than the Flying Thunder God Technique...
Intangibility was simply far too unreasonable!
It practically threw the traditional give-and-take of shinobi combat out the window. It was almost impossible to counter. After all, even the Flying Thunder God Technique required clearly established markers.
Kamui needed nothing of the sort.
Not only was it overwhelmingly useful in combat, it even came with its own secret hideout...
Even Hiruzen found himself a little tempted.
After all, what man hadn't dreamed as a boy of having a little space entirely to himself?
A single Mangekyō ability somehow excelled in both combat and everyday life...
As expected of the most unreasonable Uchiha and their absurd eyes that reflected the heart!
"I think I understand now, Obito..."
Hiruzen reached out and casually placed his hand over Obito's intangible arm.
Then something happened that made Obito's eyes widen.
Hokage-sama had actually grabbed his intangible arm!
"Huh?"
Obito stared at Hiruzen in astonishment, momentarily dumbfounded.
The sheer casualness of it left him at a loss for words...
'Wait, this is a Mangekyō ability!'
"Fūinjutsu, kid."
Hiruzen chuckled.
"A long time ago, back when I was still an ordinary jōnin, I used to wonder what I would do if an enemy ever mastered Tobirama-sama's Flying Thunder God Technique."
"A spatial ability with almost no countermeasures is simply too overwhelming."
"I couldn't count on our enemies never acquiring spatial techniques. Unfortunately, my own talent for space–time techniques was thoroughly ordinary. Luckily, I had a decent aptitude for Fūinjutsu."
Hiruzen had developed this specifically to deal with Tobirama...
No, that wasn't right. It was meant to deal with enemies who might possess space–time techniques... and he'd asked Mito to help him develop this "spatial seal."
Tobirama himself had yet to experience what it felt like. Instead, Seisui's younger brother Obito had gotten the honor first.
Obito had sensed it clearly. The instant Hiruzen approached his intangible arm, it was as though space itself had been locked down by a tremendous gravitational force, forcibly knocking him out of his intangible state in an instant...
Hiruzen shook his head, still dissatisfied with his performance.
At his current level, all he could really do was make it difficult for an enemy to escape while they were locked in close-quarters combat. At longer ranges, it was a different matter entirely...
Ideally, Hiruzen wanted to combine the Spirit Release's "dōjutsu projection" with Fūinjutsu, or perhaps temper his own body into a walking barrier.
Within his domain, unauthorized spatial movement would be completely prohibited!
Hiruzen had already decided who his sparring partners would be for the next round.
Tobirama, Minato, Jiraiya with his Reverse Summoning Technique—and of course, most importantly, Obito with Kamui. Together, they could help him unravel the mysteries of space...
Obito had mixed feelings.
He had actually thought he'd become someone no one in the shinobi world could counter...
Perhaps not even Hokage-sama.
Hiruzen took in every change in Obito's expression and smiled faintly.
Extraordinary power could affect a person's state of mind.
There was an old saying: give a man a blade, and thoughts of killing naturally follow. Once someone possessed power that others couldn't resist—especially power gained all at once—it was easy for things to go wrong if their character hadn't matured enough to match it...
In a sense, this was also why the Uchiha who awakened the Mangekyō had caused so much trouble during the Warring States era.
But as long as someone was there who could keep them in check, that particular illness generally cleared up very quickly.
That was also why the Uchiha hadn't started slaughtering one another over Izanagi while Madara and Izuna were around...
As for Obito...
Hiruzen trusted that Obito's Will of Fire would keep him from losing his balance.
But whether Obito lost his balance was Obito's responsibility. Finding ways to counter excessively overwhelming space–time techniques was the Hokage's responsibility...
As Hokage, what he needed to do was become as strong as possible and account for as many factors as he could, so that the village's other shinobi would have as few opportunities—and as little temptation—as possible to make mistakes...
Everyone was doing their best to survive.
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