Staring at Nohara Rin, who was unmistakably breathing and alive, Uchiha Madara's heart surged with absolute turmoil.
Countless thoughts raced through his head.
At that moment, he was genuinely terrified that little bastard Obito had actually blown the Rinnegan to revive Rin.
Before kicking the bucket, Madara had done everything in his power to pave a path for Obito, guiding him to witness the sheer darkness of the shinobi world so he'd understand that the Infinite Tsukuyomi was the only salvation this trash world had.
But Madara still can'y rest easy.
Obito was the most suitable candidate he'd managed to dig up, but that didn't mean he was necessarily the best candidate.
The main reason was that Madara had already clung to life for way too damn long by that point. Furthermore, he'd already handed the Rinnegan over to Nagato.
That meant his master plan was already an arrow loosed from the bow—there was zero turning back.
Before Nagato fully matured, Madara had to find a spokesman.
And Obito just so happened to stumble right into his eyes at the perfect time.
First off, Obito had been a hot-blooded idiot back then, idiots like that were the easiest to fool.
That was both a massive advantage and a glaring flaw.
Now, Madara's paranoia was spiraling in one specific direction: 'If Obito was so easily played by me, couldn't he just as easily get played by someone else?'
Especially since Madara noticed that Black Zetsu—the supposed physical embodiment of his will—hadn't shown its face at all yet.
That just made him even more suspicious.
After all, when a hot-blooded idiot turned into an edgelord, he only became a cold-blooded idiot.
His actual IQ sure as hell didn't go up!
"It seems Madara is still Madara. Let's go."
Senju Tobirama caught the subtle shift in Madara's expression and knew his mission was accomplished.
So, completely on-brand for his personality, he just let out a cold snort, spun on his heel, and walked off with the two women.
Madara kept his mouth shut and didn't call after them.
"Madara, you're still exactly the same as ever." Hashirama let out a soft sigh, then smiled. "It's all right. We'll change things slowly."
It was true.
In the eyes of Hashirama—the guy who understood Madara better than anyone—Madara's behavior was perfectly normal.
Hashirama had literally said before that the masked man couldn't be Madara, because Madara would never be caught dead wearing a mask.
Madara would flex his domineering nature, but only when he actually had the strength to back it up. If he had zero strength but still kept shouting arrogantly, that wouldn't be Madara.
That would just be a bratty little girl.
For Madara to act like this right now—neither acting all high-and-mighty nor admitting defeat, but simply resisting Tobirama through sheer silence—was, in Hashirama's book, already a massive improvement within reasonable limits.
If the improvement was any bigger, even Hashirama might start suspecting Madara was cooking up some new scheme.
"Hashirama, I want to learn about the village. Take me there to see it," Madara ordered, his voice totally flat.
"Sure! I've wanted to show you the current Konoha for a long time. Madara, you have no idea—"
"Not Konoha. The village right here… Amegakure, was it?" Madara cut off the excited Hashirama, who was already gearing up to push the wheelchair.
His desire to tour Amegakure was, at its core, just an excuse to gather intel.
And if he got lucky, maybe he'd catch a glimpse of Nagato.
If Nagato was still around, then Madara could finally relax a little. It would mean Obito hadn't lost his damn mind and blown the Rinnegan to revive Rin.
'In that case, things are getting interesting. How exactly did Nohara Rin come back to life?' Madara thought.
'Could it be that, while I was dead, someone actually developed a brand-new resurrection ninjutsu?'
"Amegakure? That works too, I suppose." Hashirama looked a little bummed that Madara didn't want to visit Konoha, but he didn't mind too much.
He started pushing Madara's wheelchair toward the village.
"Madara, you really do have good eyes. The Land of Rain might be small, but Amegakure is the birthplace of the earliest reforms in the modern shinobi world, so it's developed the best. There are plenty of fun things here, and tons of delicious food…
"Unfortunately, we're both dead now. We don't have a sense of taste, so we can't enjoy the food! What a pity."
After rolling a wheelchair-bound Madara into Amegakure, Hashirama kept chattering nonstop.
At first, Madara let Hashirama's rambling go in one ear and right out the other.
He only mentally jotted down the relevant intel and paid no attention to the rest.
For concrete intel, he still had to collect it with his own two eyes.
But very quickly, Madara spotted something that completely contradicted what Hashirama had just said.
His brows pulled into a tight knot.
A woman who was undeniably an Edo Tensei—sporting black sclera and cracked skin—was actually sipping on some kind of beverage.
A few living girls were even passing her grilled sausages to eat.
'What exactly is going on here?'
It wasn't that Edo Tensei were physically incapable of eating.
Eating just had no meaning for them. There was no nutrition, no taste, and absolutely no physical sensation.
But the expression on this Edo Tensei woman's face as she chewed clearly showed she could actually taste it.
"Master, eat this! Try this one!"
The person speaking was Maki, one of the Sunagakure trio who had shown up earlier.
She was shoving skewers toward the Edo Tensei woman—her teacher, Pakura, who had originally died ages ago.
Maki, Matsuri, and Yukata had made the trip to Amegakure exactly because they heard the village was offering Edo Tensei services.
Even though the three of them didn't have a single contribution point to their names, their luck was insanely good.
They bumped into someone whose points were practically overflowing with nowhere to spend them!
That person was Shigaraki Tanuki, who had just submitted all his Nue-related research and used a chunk of his points to sign up for the same artificial offspring cultivation service Sarada used.
Tanuki had already been scheming to find an opportunity to see if Kumogakure needed any contribution points.
He wanted to set up a trade, swap the points for cash, and upgrade his quality of life.
As luck would have it, he ran straight into the three Sunagakure girls publicly trying to buy contribution points right in the middle of Amegakure.
The backer behind those three girls was actually Gaara.
Once Gaara caught wind of Maki's wish, he threw his full support behind it.
That was because Gaara had found out from Makoto that his own father, Rasa, had completely betrayed Pakura—a literal village hero—and orchestrated her death.
No matter how you sliced it, Rasa was still his father and the previous Kazekage.
As the sitting Fifth Kazekage, whether publicly or privately, Gaara had to make amends for that crap.
Because of that, Gaara backed their play this time.
If they needed to drop cash for contribution points, Sunagakure's recovering economy could easily foot the bill.
Of course, the Sunagakure trio hadn't actually brought briefcases of cash with them.
They had to settle for Matsuri, Gaara's personal disciple, slapping down a token as collateral first.
Once the three girls secured the points, they immediately bought the Edo Tensei service.
And it was at this exact same time that the Second Hokage's Shadow Clone got the memo about Sasori's new breakthrough.
So, Tobirama had his clone tell Orochimaru they could tack a brand-new feature onto their Edo Tensei target entirely for free.
A feature that could freely toggle the five human senses on and off.
Tobirama's original plan was to guinea-pig the tech on a random Edo Tensei first.
After all, that formula was built for a human puppet, not a reanimated corpse.
If he wanted to slap it onto Madara without any flaw, he needed solid confirmation first.
And so, the bizarre scene Madara was currently witnessing came to be.
Surrounded by the three little girls' enthusiastic badgering, Pakura sipped milk tea and munched on grilled sausages.
The burning desire for revenge she'd felt right after being revived was, for the moment, completely shoved back from her head.