"So that's how it is?"
Obito couldn't help looking at his idol with admiration.
The title Professor of Ninjutsu was well deserved!
Obito could hardly imagine how Hokage-sama, without either Uchiha or Senju blood, had endured hardship after hardship and slowly trained himself to reach his current level of strength...
It must have been even harder for him than it had been for Obito!
"Hokage-sama, there's one more thing..."
Obito grew somewhat awkward again.
Their conversation had finally reached the main event.
Uchiha Madara's existence!
Naturally, after the Crimson Organization revealed itself, the entire shinobi world had begun discussing who could possibly be pulling the strings behind this mysterious organization composed of former Kage from various villages...
Space–time transportation techniques, forbidden techniques involving attractive and repulsive forces, Impure World Reincarnation, a ruthless and underhanded style...
And now Wood Release had been added to muddy the waters.
Looking at the overlap between all these elements, there seemed to be only one shinobi who fit every requirement...
Konoha's Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama!
And yet Obito knew that many of the Crimson Organization's actions were actually Madara's doing...
The problem was that Madara had also bound the deeply sentimental Obito to him through the bond between teacher and student. Obito hadn't even reacted much when Kamui was countered, yet now his face flushed red again.
How was he supposed to face Hokage-sama?
Lie to the Hokage?
That was obviously impossible.
But betray his sensei and Great Clan Head?
That didn't seem right either...
"The leader of the Crimson Organization..."
A fierce struggle raged inside Obito. He unconsciously lowered his head and stammered softly, "It's... it's..."
"Obito, raise your head."
Watching Obito's reaction, Hiruzen already understood. He spoke gently.
"Did he tell you not to say anything? And not only that—he was once someone of very high standing in Konoha..."
Obito froze, then raised his head and met Hiruzen's gaze, his Mangekyō filled with nervous anticipation.
'Could it really be just like Hi-kun said...?'
'Hokage-sama actually knows everything?'
"Let me think..."
Hiruzen took out his pipe and made a show of thinking. Obito immediately rose to his feet and used his finely controlled Fire Release to light Hokage-sama's pipe.
Hiruzen gave Obito a mildly surprised look.
After spending more than a year studying under Madara, his social awareness had improved remarkably quickly.
It felt like he'd spent quite a lot of time attending to the old man...
Hiruzen suddenly found Obito even more interesting. His instincts told him that someone with Obito's personality shouldn't have been capable of devising such a sophisticated strategy as winning Madara over through emotional bonds.
It seemed there was an expert advising him from behind the scenes!
Amid the curling smoke, Obito nervously waited for the Hokage to speak.
Kaguya, for some reason, found herself looking forward to it as well.
Kaguya wasn't particularly gifted when it came to thinking things through, but she unexpectedly enjoyed listening to Hiruzen reason things out and unravel mysteries. It made her feel as though she could analyze all sorts of things too...
After all, Hiruzen was her vessel!
"You said someone deliberately engineered the circumstances that awakened your Mangekyō..."
"And this person possesses so many forbidden techniques and resources associated with Tobirama-sensei. That's why most people in the shinobi world believe my sensei is the leader of the Crimson Organization."
"It's a reasonable conclusion. Both the style and the actual techniques fit. But they've overlooked one thing: Konoha's Will of Fire and the bonds between us."
"The more the leader of the Crimson Organization resembles Tobirama-sensei, the more certain I am that it isn't him."
Hiruzen exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled.
Obito didn't quite understand.
Why would resembling Tobirama more make it less likely to be him?
"Obito, even after awakening the Mangekyō and spending more than a year with the Crimson Organization, despite all the suspicions surrounding you, you still trusted me enough to come alone to the Hokage's office..."
"That's because the Will of Fire we share resonates between us. The bonds of Konoha transcend mere suspicion."
"You trust me, so I trust you."
Hiruzen spoke at an unhurried pace.
Obito's face lit up, and he unconsciously puffed out his chest.
"Yes, Hokage-sama!"
"When we're alone, you can call me Shishō."
"Yes, Shishō!" Obito immediately shouted.
"And that trust has been passed down through our entire line. The bond between Tobirama-sensei and me is no different."
"If it really were Tobirama-sensei—even if he'd resurrected the Kage of previous generations, even if he held different views about the Will of Fire and the village's development, even if he hadn't actually died back then and had survived until now to arrange this entire trial..."
"He would have come to see me."
Hiruzen spoke softly.
"Just as I trust you, my student's student, and you trust me as your Shishō, I trust my own sensei..."
"If the real Tobirama-sensei were behind this, then on one hand, he would come and tell me that Konoha was about to face a trial. He'd lay his cards on the table and have the village prepare itself, while his real goal would be for us to coordinate from inside and outside to swallow up the shinobi world..."
"On the other hand, he would never allow so many people to suspect him. Instead, he'd choose someone sufficiently recognizable to serve as his false identity. Tobirama-sensei does care about his reputation, after all..."
"If it really were Tobirama-sensei, I imagine he'd find some way to pose as 'Uchiha Madara'..."
Obito's entire body jolted, and his eyes flew wide open.
'Wait...'
'He's seriously going to reason his way to the truth just like that?!'
Hiruzen smiled at Obito's reaction.
"You really are suited to wearing a mask, kid. But you'd better learn to keep your expression under control. Otherwise, sooner or later it'll get you into trouble..."
Obito yelped and frantically waved his hands.
"I didn't say anything, Shishō!"
"Whether you say anything doesn't matter. The facts are what they are, and the logic is right there."
Hiruzen shook his head.
"Tobirama-sensei would choose to impersonate Uchiha Madara. So who would choose to impersonate Tobirama-sensei?"
"In truth, when someone stronger chooses to impersonate someone weaker, there's a certain implication to it. The person taking the initiative is usually operating on an entirely different level from the other."
"A strong Warring States-era style... an intimate understanding of the Uchiha..."
Hiruzen looked toward the stone displayed on the Hokage's desk—the sage's tablet passed down through the Uchiha Clan.
"Can you read the words on this, Obito...?"
Obito narrowed his eyes at the tablet and slowly read aloud, "When Yin and Yang become one, the power of all creation can be obtained..."
"The so-called power of all creation can refer to the union of Yin and Yang Release, or to Yin and Yang emerging from the interactions of the Five Elements," Hiruzen said softly.
"During the Warring States era, the ultimate representative of Yang power was the First Hokage, Hashirama-sama. The ultimate representative of Yin power was naturally the head of the Uchiha Clan, Uchiha Madara."
"When those two powers combine, Yin and Yang truly become one. The Rinnegan is the embodiment of that power of all creation, representing an entirely new form of power."
"So the answer is actually quite simple."
Hiruzen revealed the truth, his eyes gleaming even through the haze of smoke.
"Uchiha Madara didn't die after his battle with Hashirama-sama. Somehow, he obtained Hashirama-sama's cells, went into hiding, and began training to attain this power of all creation."
"He didn't awaken those eyes until he was old, which corresponds with the period when he began taking action..."
"Based on what I know of the stubbornness of Warring States-era shinobi and of the Uchiha, I suspect he found some method of resolving the conflicts of the shinobi world, but then put it aside."
"And naturally, the reason he put it aside was because he saw that Konoha was doing fairly well and gradually moving closer to the village he'd once envisioned..."
"But he was also unwilling to abandon the solution he'd devised through the Rinnegan, a method based on resolving everything through overwhelming power. Yet Konoha was the village he and Hashirama-sama had founded together. Those conflicting feelings eventually produced the situation we see now..."
"Uchiha Madara is stubbornly unwilling to abandon his own solution, yet at the same time he has begun to acknowledge Konoha. So he tests Konoha while simultaneously causing trouble for it, constantly raising the stakes as he tries to prove whether he himself was right or wrong."
"Am I right, Obito...?"
Obito and Kaguya—one outside, one within—listened to Hiruzen's analysis with their mouths hanging open.
Kaguya didn't know the truth behind any of this. She simply thought it was incredibly impressive that Hiruzen could say so much at once and connect so many different pieces of logic together!
Wasn't this harder than using All-Killing Ash Bones?
Obito, meanwhile, felt that Hokage-sama's eyes were even sharper than Great Clan Head Madara's Rinnegan!
He had completely seen through Great Clan Head Madara...
It was as though Hiruzen had the script in his hands and was reading out Obito's entire experience word by word.
Obito couldn't help wondering how Great Clan Head Madara, who always prided himself on being so mysterious, would react if he found out that Shishō had seen through him long ago...
Wouldn't he get so worked up that he couldn't even eat barbecue anymore?
But Obito's perspective was still too limited. He had underestimated the complicated bond between "Madara and the inheritor of his youthful ideals."
Long ago, Madara had already come to believe that he and Hiruzen were playing a game against each other from afar. Neither side had simply acknowledged it outright.
From Hiruzen's perspective, Madara allowing Obito to return to the village was, in a sense, Madara's way of revealing his identity to him a little more openly...
To test the Hokage's attitude!
After all, with Hiruzen successfully answering every move Madara made, Madara's approval of Konoha had probably been steadily increasing.
Konoha had even given Madara more than enough recognition in the Ninja Academy and on the village's public noticeboards...
The Uchiha Clan was doing well too. On top of that, Izuna was now inside Tobirama, and Hashirama had returned as well.
All those factors were now in place.
But Madara was also impossibly stubborn. He couldn't exactly return without a proper justification, could he? Yet many of the things he'd done were also difficult to explain publicly...
The only person capable of handling that was Hiruzen.
So rather than saying Madara had simply allowed Obito to return, it would be more accurate to say Madara had taken half a step back:
'Hiruzen, I still have to keep testing you. The contest between the Infinite Tsukuyomi and the Will of Fire isn't over yet!'
'But you're doing reasonably well so far, so I'll send you back a Mangekyō Uchiha—a promising kid personally trained by six Kage and me...'
'Think it over. If you win in the end, how exactly am I supposed to return to Konoha?'
It was asking for quite a lot all at once, but it was also thoroughly characteristic of the Shura of the Shinobi World.
Even Hiruzen had difficulty finding a way to make Madara's logic and demands sound reasonable. But ever since Kaguya had warned him that Madara seemed to have been possessed by some otherworldly entity, everything suddenly had a perfect solution...
The false darkness of the shinobi world, the designated scapegoats: Tobirama and Danzō.
The one truly responsible for everything: the otherworldly entity in Hiruzen's eyes, Ōtsutsuki Isshiki!
"You knew! You really did know everything!"
Obito could barely put his admiration for Hiruzen into words.
"You figured it all out! Your analytical ability is even more powerful than Tomie's Mangekyō ability..."
It really was just like Great Clan Head Madara said...
Those who knew how to use their brains were always unbeatable!
Hiruzen smiled faintly.
He had merely gotten lucky using a few little tricks such as controlling variables and quantitative analysis...
"Obito, perhaps you're wondering why I'm being so tolerant of Uchiha Madara—even allowing him to let Tobirama-sensei take the blame for his actions, despite the fact that I'm Tobirama-sensei's student..."
Hiruzen's expression grew serious as he pointed toward the tablet.
"This tablet was passed down by a sage. Some of its contents can only be seen after awakening the Mangekyō, while other parts can only be discovered after one's understanding of chakra reaches a certain level."
In reality, the Sage of Six Paths' tablet said nothing whatsoever about Isshiki.
But if Black Zetsu could alter its contents, why couldn't the Hokage?
If Hiruzen said the words could be seen there, then they could be seen there. The thing was sitting in his office, after all...
Obito listened solemnly to Hiruzen.
He had a feeling something big was coming...
"The reason Madara broke with Hashirama, and the reason he became so obsessive, is that he was most likely possessed by some evil sage and turned into a vessel for reincarnation."
"Sages truly do exist."
"Such a 'sage' can use chakra to gradually corrupt Uchiha Madara's thoughts, eventually transforming him into a copy of itself and thereby achieving a form of resurrection."
"It's similar to the Living Corpse Reincarnation technique recorded in the Scroll of Seals."
Hiruzen spoke gravely.
Those words made Kaguya's heart tremble.
It was one thing for the shinobi world's homegrown variations of White Zetsu to surpass the army she'd created...
But how had they managed to independently reproduce even the core principle behind the Ōtsutsuki Clan's Kāma?!
Never mind whether it was only a crude version. The fact that they had even conceived of the principle was frightening enough...
Just who was supposed to be the progenitor of chakra here? Her, or these shinobi who supposedly didn't even understand chakra's true nature?
Why did she suddenly feel so outdated...?
'My vessel doesn't know I can actually take over his body, does he?'
'No, wait. Taking over his body probably isn't possible. His constitution is far too strange. This fragment of my consciousness and chakra inside him feels almost the same as being trapped inside that ungrateful son's Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei...'
'I can't do anything in here.'
Kaguya sadly realized that she seemed to have escaped one seal only to stumble into another.
The good news, at least, was that she could still communicate with Hiruzen. She could try using her extraordinary wisdom and schemes to see whether she could win herself an ally...
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