'What the hell?'
The masked man, who had just been minding his own business eating curry rice, froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
What did White Zetsu even mean, the person he cared about most had fallen?
Did he still have anyone he gave a damn about?
Wasn't the thing he cared about most right now the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan?
So... was the person he cared about most Nagato?
Or was it Kakashi?
But as for Kakashi, the masked man figured it was practically impossible for him to fall.
Kakashi's combat skills and sheer cockroach-level endurance were facts everyone acknowledged.
Everyone close to the guy had dropped dead, yet he still hadn't gone to the dark side.
His father, his teacher, his teammates, his superior.
Hell, even fast-forwarding to the Boruto era, both of his students were gone too.
All you could really say was that the ninja world just wasn't very superstitious. Otherwise, Kakashi definitely would've been branded a walking jinx of absolute calamity.
"Is it Nagato or Kakashi?" the masked man demanded.
But the second those words left his mouth, a massive wave of déjà vu slammed into him.
Back when Madara first scooped him up and he was stuck recovering in a cave, hadn't a White Zetsu popped out of nowhere screaming, "This is bad!" right before dragging him off to witness a scene straight out of hell?
Even so, the masked man kept his cool.
At this point, he genuinely couldn't imagine anything happening that could actually shatter his expectations.
"No. It does involve Kakashi, but Kakashi hasn't fallen," White Zetsu corrected, shaking his head. "It's Lord Madara. Orochimaru revived Lord Madara using the Edo Tensei!"
"What?!"
The masked man's expression violently twisted under his mask.
Madara got dragged back through the Edo Tensei?
You have to understand, in his grand master plan, reviving Madara was absolutely never on the table.
His goal was to become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki himself and personally launch the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
As for Madara? Dead men needed to obediently stay buried in the damn dirt!
'Could it be that Black Zetsu sniffed out my intentions?'
That would perfectly explain why the sludge had suddenly gone ghost recently and stopped delivering intel.
Had it actually been creeping around trying to find a new partner to cooperate with?
The more the masked man chewed on it, the more plausible it seemed.
After all, Black Zetsu was the only one who knew where Madara's corpse was stashed.
How else could it have randomly ended up in Orochimaru's hands to be reanimated?
At this point, the masked man's brain was spinning into overdrive trying to figure out how to handle Madara.
He completely tuned out White Zetsu's earlier comment about someone having "fallen."
Zetsu's thought process was famously bizarre anyway.
It wasn't weird for the guy to spout random garbage, so filtering him out was just standard practice.
But this time, the masked man was dead wrong.
White Zetsu's wording had actually been surgically precise.
Because this time around, White Zetsu wasn't speaking from his own twisted consciousness.
He was just putting on a performance, parroting a ridiculous script someone else had spoon-fed him.
"Where is Madara right now?" the masked man demanded, his tone turning deadly serious.
"In Sunagakure."
"Sunagakure? What is he doing in Sunagakure... the One-Tail?! He went straight there to capture Shukaku?!"
The masked man instinctively blurted out his confusion, but he quickly connected the dots.
Madara was gearing up to use his own power to snatch the Tailed Beasts first and hoard them for himself.
That way, whether the masked man betrayed him or not, as long as Madara held the Tailed Beasts, he kept a complete chokehold on the Infinite Tsukuyomi project!
"It's not the One-Tail," White Zetsu corrected, shaking his head before launching into an explanation.
"After Lord Madara got revived via Edo Tensei, the First Hokage actually took him on a tour to see the current state of the Five Great Nations. Then, in Sunagakure, Lord Madara finally bumped into the beloved person he'd been missing all these years: Chiyo.
Back in the day, Madara was the fearsome Shura who shook the shinobi world, while Chiyo was just an ordinary young girl and Konoha had only just been founded. The other hidden villages sent envoys over to negotiate with the First Hokage and Lord Madara.
The First Hokage was down to pursue peace, and originally, Lord Madara agreed too.
But then... Lord Madara laid eyes on Chiyo.
One meeting with Chiyo ruined the man for life. One affectionate glance sparked a romance meant to last ten thousand years!
Lord Madara fell head over heels at first sight. However, because the massive gap between their seniority and status was just too wide, he had absolutely no choice but to ruthlessly suppress his burning passion.
Then, a tragedy struck.
Because VIPs from the other Four Great Villages had gathered in Konoha, Mū—who hadn't even become the Second Tsuchikage yet—brought a young Ōnoki along as an envoy.
The First Tsuchikage was busy hashing things out with the First Hokage, while Mū and Ōnoki went to meet with Lord Madara. But right before they actually met him, Ōnoki also spotted the adorable Chiyo and started actively pursuing her!
Lord Madara saw the whole thing unfold.
Ōnoki and Chiyo were exactly the same age and on equal social footing.
That cruel reality absolutely shattered Madara's heart. So, during the negotiations right after, Lord Madara mercilessly crushed Mū and Ōnoki, flat-out rejecting their pleas for peace.
He even slapped Ōnoki with a genjutsu and cruelly carved a curse-like sealing formula onto him, permanently stunting his growth so the guy would never grow tall.
After dealing with his rival in love, Lord Madara thought the coast was clear. Once the boring negotiations wrapped up, he planned to secretly court Chiyo.
But he never in a million years imagined the First Hokage would betray him.
Outside Konoha, Chiyo got attacked by a wild bear.
The First Hokage's Wood Clone swooped in, heroically saved the beauty, and rescued her.
Then, right in front of Chiyo's starry eyes, the clone reverted back into a wooden dummy!
One encounter with the First Hokage ruined Chiyo for life. She actually dragged that wooden dummy all the way back to Sunagakure.
Just to make that Wood Clone move and come alive again, Chiyo sweated blood to master puppet manipulation.
When Madara found out his best friend had stolen the love of his life, he was equal parts heartbroken and furious.
That was exactly why he ditched Konoha and declared war on the First Hokage.
And that is how the battle at the Valley of the End actually happened.
The eve of their legendary clash at the Valley of the End just so happened to be the exact day Chiyo got married in Sunagakure. Lord Madara channeled his grief into pure strength. He resolved to beat the First Hokage to a pulp and win back Chiyo's heart!
But since Chiyo herself was about to belong to another man, Lord Madara had no choice but to take preemptive measures.
He didn't hesitate to gouge out several of his own clansmen's eyes, program Izanagi into the Sharingan, and secretly plant them right onto Chiyo's back.
That night, when Chiyo hit the bridal chamber after her wedding, the millisecond the groom caused any 'harm' to her, Izanagi would trigger and reboot Chiyo back to her pristine original state.
But the groom was a man of sheer perseverance!
He relentlessly kept launching attacks against Izanagi.
At that exact same time, Lord Madara was locked in a brutal deathmatch with the First Hokage.
Unfortunately, Izanagi has a limit. Lord Madara's beloved Chiyo ultimately became another man's woman, while Madara himself got his ass handed to him by Hashirama!
He totally failed to protect Chiyo's body and her heart.
So, after getting revived as a edo tensei and crossing paths with Chiyo again, Lord Madara instantly relived all those painful memories.
After learning that Granny Chiyo had been a widow for years, Lord Madara immediately started pursuing her, determined to make up for the tragic regrets of his past life."
"..."
After listening to White Zetsu dump that massive, unhinged load of soap opera lore, the masked man fell dead silent for a very long time.
Finally, he managed to squeeze out a single, strained sentence.
"Am I already stuck inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi?"