"On the surface, Black Zetsu just tampered with the stone tablet belonging to Indra's reincarnations—namely, the Uchiha clan…"
"Wait, Lord Second, hold on a sec." Shikamaru cut in again. "Who exactly left those messages on the Uchiha's stone tablet in the first place?"
"The Sage of Six Paths."
Senju Tobirama kept a perfectly straight face.
He wasn't the least bit mad about the interruption. If anything, Shikamaru cutting in just gave him a few precious seconds to brainstorm his next load of crap.
"The Sage of Six Paths left it?" Shikamaru pressed. "But shouldn't whatever the Sage left behind be all about getting Indra and Asura to reconcile? That lines up perfectly with Black Zetsu's goal of bringing the two together. So why would Black Zetsu need to change anything?"
"You're right. Your logic is sound. The Uchiha's stone tablet originally did hold messages from the Sage of Six Paths—stuff all about love and whatnot.
"However!
"Kid, based on the story I just told, you might understand the Sage of Six Paths now, but you still don't understand the Uchiha!"
Senju Tobirama shook his head with a heavy sigh.
Everyone present completely bought it.
As this sealed, ancient history gradually came to light, they'd all realized exactly what the Second Hokage had been dealing with.
They all understood that the Second Hokage truly got the Uchiha!
Hell, he probably understood the Uchiha better than he understood his own Senju clan.
"The Uchiha clan practically breathes defiance. If an early reincarnation of Indra read those messages, not only would it fail to make him fall in line, it would just trigger his rebellious streak. If that happened, Black Zetsu would have an even harder time forcing the brothers together."
"That makes sense. That actually makes sense," Shikamaru muttered, a lightbulb finally going off.
"But Uchiha Madara…"
"By the time it got to Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Sasuke, who knows how many generations Indra's chakra had already cycled through.
"In the beginning, Indra's reincarnations fiercely fought off that kind of lifestyle. But thanks to the tampered stone tablet, they kept rebelling in the total opposite direction. Over time, they actually started developing that same twisted tendency.
"By the time Madara rolled around, he was already completely corrupted. He'd developed a serious craving to host those free-for-all brawls with everyone too.
"I'll even give you this piece of trivia: back in the day, when my idiot brother started having those same urges, it was actually Uchiha Madara who dragged him into the gutter.
"Of course, back then, those two kept their real names a secret from each other. That is, until one day, I finally busted their little affair—and Uchiha Izuna found out from the Uchiha's side.
"To stop my brother from turning into a bond-type ninja, I had no choice but to snitch to our father.
"On the flip side, Uchiha Izuna's thought process was completely different from mine. That guy was also a total, hopeless… bond-type ninja.
"He snitched to his father too, but Izuna did it purely out of raging jealousy. He wanted to shatter the bond between Madara and Hashirama just so he could replace Hashirama himself.
"Long story short, from that day forward, Hashirama and Madara officially cut ties on the surface. After that, the Senju and Uchiha clashed constantly, just like always.
"But I was the only one who realized that with every single battle, my brother and Madara's feelings for each other just got deeper and deeper.
"If it had just been some simple, peaceful romance, maybe it would've ended there. But once hatred got mixed into that love, things got ridiculously intense. Tangling love and hate together just made their obsession grow out of control.
"And because they had no choice but to suppress it, when that tension finally blew up, it was earth-shattering!"
Everyone listened, completely hooked on the drama.
Once the story hit this peak, Kiba couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "Lord Second, didn't you try to put a stop to it back then?"
"Of course I did. Unfortunately, fate played us for absolute fools." Senju Tobirama let out another sigh.
"By that point, my brother and Madara's affair was burning white-hot, like a paper bomb ready to blow at any second. To pry those two apart, I had to settle for the next best option—using one tiger to eat another wolf.
"During one of our skirmishes, I used the Flying Raijin Slash and painlessly snipped Izuna dick, turning him into a girl. My whole plan was to force Izuna and Madara together, making Madara finally drop his weird obsession with Hashirama!
Just as I expected, after Izuna bounced back as a girl, she immediately weaponized the favor owed to her and demanded that my brother marry her instead.
But I never imagined Uchiha Madara could be such a vicious bastard.
At the end of the day, Izuna only got injured and turned into a girl because she followed him onto the battlefield. Yet, not only was Madara ungrateful, he actually poisoned Izuna's medicine just so he could keep his twisted entanglement with Hashirama alive!
And just like that, poor Izuna was sent packing straight to the afterlife by the very brother she trusted and loved the most!"
"Back then, I pieced together some scattered intel and found out that after Izuna died, Madara actually put on a whole act and cried.
I couldn't believe the nerve of the guy. So the next time we clashed, I casually asked him, 'How is Izuna doing?' I just wanted to confirm if he had really pulled a stunt worse than a wild beast, and maybe wake up whatever shred of a conscience he had left."
"Unfortunately, I completely failed."
"Madara just looked at me with a deadpan face and said, 'Izuna succumbed to his severe injuries and died.' Whether Izuna was actually on death's door or not, wouldn't I—the guy who literally sliced him with my own two hands—know best?"
"Just to guarantee Izuna's physical and mental health, I washed my blade multiple times before using the Flying Raijin Slash. I even coated it in a layer of alcohol to disinfect the wound and a layer of quicklime to clot the bleeding."
"Izuna absolutely should have survived! Yet Madara personally murdered his own younger sibling, then weaponized the tragedy to guilt-trip my brother into yielding beneath his lewd tyranny!"
"In the end, my idiot brother completely failed to see through the scam and nearly offed himself with a kunai."
"But how could Madara ever allow that?"
"Madara's endgame was to score my brother's body and heart. Of course he wouldn't let the guy just die. So he grabbed the golden opportunity handed to him, agreed to cooperate with Hashirama, and founded Konoha."
"So that's the true origin of Konoha? What a turbulent mess."
"…No wonder the Ninja Academy leaves this chapter out of the textbooks."
Everyone let out a collective, emotional sigh.
Listening to all this wild drama, they almost completely forgot why they had even come looking for the Second Hokage in the first place.
"Even after all that, I still didn't give up on separating Hashirama and Madara. To fix the issue, I arranged a marriage for my brother and practically forced him to marry Mito—who, thank goodness, was an actual woman.
Now, even though Hashirama was a 'naturally depraved' reincarnation of Asura's chakra, his current life was way different from the past ones, not just in raw power, but in how much control he had over his own destiny.
Because of that, my brother didn't turn down the engagement."
"When Madara caught wind of it, he flew into an absolute rage and completely ditched Konoha."
As Senju Tobirama kept spinning his tale, he somehow naturally slipped in the phrase "naturally depraved."
It seemed that after getting chewed out by Hikari so many times, he had just gotten used to it and quietly accepted the label.
"I don't need to spell out what happened after that. Once Hashirama and Madara kicked the bucket, their chakra hopped right over to Naruto and Sasuke, and this new pair of lovebirds started up their own toxic dynamic."
"Just like you all saw earlier, Sasuke and Naruto have already evolved into full-blown gay-type ninjas."
"..."
"What a deeply satisfying… storytelling session."
After soaking it all in, Kiba couldn't help letting out another heavy sigh.
Woof, woof.
Akamaru shook his head.
The dog seemed pretty dissatisfied with the whole history lesson.
He still heavily preferred the saucy furry tales from the Limited Tsukuyomi books!
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