"Me? What the hell am I supposed to have? Don't forget what we actually are right now."
When Hashirama heard that, he didn't even suspect Madara was plotting something.
He just assumed Madara had gotten so pissed off that his brain completely short-circuited.
They were literally Edo Tensei zombies.
Where the hell was Hashirama supposed to pull Hashirama cells from?
"Before you and Tobirama regained most of your original strength, wasn't it because every vessel had some of your power mixed into it?" Madara asked faintly.
Back when he was still breathing, Madara had never taken the Edo Tensei seriously.
That was simply because the beta version Tobirama cooked up was pathetic.
It had no value for boosting combat strength.
It was just some gross gimmick the naturally evil Tobirama invented purely to disgust people.
How garbage were Edo Tenseis back then?
So weak that Tobirama had to invent the Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags just to pair with it, relying on kamikaze suicide bombings for support.
But right now, Madara would kill for even that weakest initial version.
Hashirama and the others scored custom-made, top-tier bodies.
He was custom-made too, sure, but his vessel was the absolute lowest-quality scrap available.
It was totally outrageous.
"This..."
Hashirama froze, hesitating.
He could definitely sense that Tobirama's body, along with his own, was packed with a massive amount of Hashirama cells.
The glaring issue was that they couldn't be extracted.
As long as the Edo Tensei remained active, everything under their skin was just literal sheets of paper mimicking flesh.
Paper that automatically restored and flew right back together the second it got damaged.
Even if he plunged a hand into his own chest and ripped out a few sheets for Madara—setting aside whether that would even work—the paper would just fly right back the second he let go, wouldn't it?
"Let's table this for now. We're leaving Konoha!"
Hashirama was just gearing up to explain when he caught the sound of ninja rapidly approaching from behind.
He lunged forward, scooped Madara up, and bolted into the distance.
He didn't even bother grabbing the wheelchair, leaving the damn thing sitting right there in the dirt.
...
A few seconds later, Yamato—a guy who practically ran on Hashirama cells—dropped into the alley.
He hauled Moegi up off the ground and started demanding what happened.
"Yamato-sensei, aren't you gonna chase those two?" Moegi asked anxiously, pointing frantically down the street.
"They're moving way too fast. An ordinary jōnin probably couldn't catch them. Let them go.
If we need to know who those two attackers were, I'll file a report with Lady Hokage later and get Sasuke to track them down. If we chase them right now, we'll just force them into a corner, and they might take innocent villagers hostage."
Yamato shook his head, shooting down her idea.
"So that's how it is?"
Moegi had totally failed to consider that angle, and she instantly felt like she'd leveled up in maturity.
Honestly, Moegi's fate carried a sort of plain, quiet tragedy.
Back when she was young and clueless, she'd tagged along as a girl helping Konohamaru spam the Sexy Technique.
All you could really say was this: anyone who actually fell for Moegi's Sexy Technique deserved to get dragged into an alley and electrocuted by Kakashi's Raikiri!
It didn't matter if her Sexy Technique looked like an adult on the outside—her real self definitely wasn't, so those creeps deserved the zap.
As for Moegi after she actually grew up?
Not long after, she got hit by the exact same tragic nerf as Uchiha Sasuke—becoming a literal vegetable.
'If you wanted a villain with Wood Release, just go grab Yamato. Sacrifice an old character and let Yamato take the hit. Why the hell would you use a new-generation kid like her as the villain's mold?'
—
"Mada mada, we can't afford to waste time. Let's hurry to the next shinobi village.
"As for those brats, I guarantee there are way more than just those few. Even if I beat the crap out of them now, it wouldn't solve the root problem.
"Later on, I'll sit down with Tobirama, Makoto, and the others. Their brains work way better than mine. We'll see if they have a real plan to fix this."
Hashirama sprinted west at top speed, carrying Madara like a sack of potatoes.
Since their faces were already exposed, turning back now carried a massive risk of getting recognized, even if they dropped the Transformation Jutsu.
After all, the Inuzuka clan's ability to track people by scent was way too busted.
Edo Tensei bodies originally didn't have a scent, but who told Hashirama to stroll over there carrying bag after bag of greasy street food?
Madara kept his mouth shut, lying slung over Hashirama's shoulder like a literal corpse.
As for Konoha's future? Madara couldn't care less.
In his eyes, as long as he successfully resurrected and reclaimed his god-tier power, whether it meant launching the Infinite Tsukuyomi or sparking a revolution, he could pull it off completely solo.
There was no need to sit around discussing crap with anyone.
Hashirama's current frantic escape actually lined up perfectly with Madara's master plan.
This way, he didn't have to stress about Hashirama dragging his feet in Konoha and wasting precious time.
The longer they stalled, the easier it'd be for Tobirama to sniff out that something was wrong.
—
Several days later.
Sunagakure.
"Today's drinks are on Lord Madara!"
Amid the cheering crowds of Sunagakure, another carefree day wrapped up.
Thanks to the whole bullying clusterfuck back in Konoha, Hashirama felt incredibly guilty toward Madara, forcing him to act as Madara's personal wallet and servant.
Every single day, he hauled Madara around like some domineering CEO, showering Granny Chiyo with gifts.
At first, Hashirama had been totally baffled.
A few days ago, when Madara was staring at Pakura on the street, Hashirama assumed the guy was just feeling pent-up.
Later, he realized that was a total misunderstanding.
But now this was happening?
This time, Hashirama kept his mouth shut, terrified he was just misreading the situation again.
But after carefully prying, he was absolutely horrified to discover it was actually true!
Hashirama finally snapped and asked, "Why the hell do you like old ladies?"
Madara looked at him like he was insane and shot back, "What old lady? Hashirama, you need to seriously recalibrate your sense of age. Think about how old we actually are! Chiyo isn't an old lady at all. She is a cute little girl."
Hashirama instantly connected the dots.
Right.
If they were really grading on a curve for "old women," then even his busty granddaughter Tsunade counted as a damn fossil.
So technically, there was nothing weird about Madara's behavior.
When Madara was still breathing, Chiyo really had been a cute little girl!
'I need a smoke. There's nothing wrong with this.'
And what about Granny Chiyo's side of things?
A while back, to help string Naruto along, someone had given her a heads-up and asked her to play along with a script, just in case.
The backstory they handed her claimed she had kidnapped the White Fang's son, Kakashi, and that the two of them were madly in love and wanted to have a baby or some crazy stuff like that.
But then, the whole plotline just vanished into thin air.
Granny Chiyo waited around forever but never got her cue to step on stage, so she tracked someone down to demand answers.
Naturally, Amegakure couldn't leak the real objective.
They just vaguely brushed her off, claiming Kakashi was currently tied up with another mission—one linked to "Uchiha Madara."
The actual truth was that Kakashi's character arc had been totally rewritten to romance the grandmother of the "masked man, Uchiha Madara."
But Granny Chiyo didn't know any of that.
After getting brushed off, it wasn't long before she literally bumped right into Uchiha Madara.
Of course she was going to play along and act her heart out.
Granny Chiyo had always been a mischievous old troll to begin with.
Now that something this ridiculously fun had dropped into her lap, she naturally had to milk it for all it was worth.
Plus, this was highly likely the real Uchiha Madara.
That made it way too good to pass up.
As for how she figured it out? She couldn't tell just by looking at the guy, but the suffocating chakra and presence radiating off Senju Hashirama right next to him were undeniably genuine.
That meant the frail, sickly Madara couldn't be a fake either.
...
At the exact same time, somewhere else entirely—
"Oh crap! Oh crap! Obito, this is bad! The person you care about the most has fallen!"
White Zetsu barged frantically into the cave, screaming at the masked man inside, who was currently just trying to eat a plate of curry rice.
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