"You old fossil, what the hell are you doing?!"
Granny Chiyo kicked Ōnoki away, then flicked her right wrist.
Chakra threads snapped out and bound Ōnoki firmly in place.
Uchiha Madara, who had literally just walked in to witness this completely unhinged scene, was genuinely surprised.
But hearing the familiar name "Ōnoki" caught him completely off guard.
Looking closely, it really was the guy.
Ōnoki hadn't changed much between his youth and his twilight years, so Madara recognized the dwarf instantly.
"You've really grown bold, Ōnoki. The little dwarf from back then... is still just a little dwarf now. But to think you actually have the nerve to run to another village just to chase women. You're already this old and still dare to force yourself on someone... How impressive."
Madara strolled over, his tone dripping with mockery.
"Madara, you're already dead! You have absolutely no right to give Chiyo happiness! Let go of Chiyo and let me do it!"
"Chiyo, calm down! Think carefully about what I told you earlier. Madara definitely isn't sincere!" Ōnoki thrashed against his bindings and shouted.
With his raw strength, even with his hands bound and unable to weave signs, Ōnoki could have easily broken free.
But right now wasn't the time for a brawl. Breaking free wouldn't accomplish a damn thing.
"How about it? Have you made your decision?" Madara totally ignored Ōnoki's ranting and shifted his gaze to Granny Chiyo.
Madara didn't know Ōnoki all that well.
Even if he had some vague impression of the guy from back in the day, decades had passed.
People changed.
So Ōnoki's passionate outburst toward Granny Chiyo didn't strike Madara as overly weird. Besides, compared to a walking corpse like himself, it logically made way more sense for a living old fossil like Ōnoki to pursue her.
As for Madara asking whether she had "made her decision," that was the exact reason he hadn't been hovering around Granny Chiyo when Ōnoki dropped in.
After Madara pitched his grand 'revive me first, so I can revive your family later' plan, Granny Chiyo demanded some time alone to think it over.
Madara backed off and gave her space. He was only just now returning to get his answer.
Granny Chiyo sat there, completely speechless.
That old bastard Ōnoki had literally just assaulted her out of nowhere, and now he was frantically shooting her meaningful looks, practically begging her to play along with his act.
'Is he seriously trying not to alert Uchiha Madara?' she thought. 'Is that really necessary?'
'Has Ōnoki honestly not noticed how pitifully weak Uchiha Madara's chakra signature is right now? Or is his psychological trauma so severe that his brain just selectively ignores it?'
...
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
After touching down in Amegakure, Senju Hashirama bumped into the village's resident perverted master-disciple duo: Sarutobi Hiruzen and Jiraiya.
Jiraiya was currently begging Sarutobi Hiruzen for a loan so he could buy a stash of the 'blue soldier pills' endorsed by Rōshi.
Of course, the real Rōshi hadn't actually endorsed them.
Recently, Kurotsuchi finally cleared some space in her schedule and wanted to track down Rōshi. But the Land of Earth was massively vast.
As a jinchūriki, a top-tier powerhouse, and a seasoned veteran, finding Rōshi if he actively wanted to stay hidden was practically impossible.
So rather than running around searching for him, it was way smarter to bait him out into the open.
After all, no matter how overpowered the legendary Talk no Jutsu was, it couldn't exactly work on a guy who wasn't there to hear it.
If they wanted to persuade the old man, they had to reel him in first.
So what was the best bait?
Pin up missing-person posters letting him know Iwagakure was looking for him?
Or maybe broadcast a message saying his old rival Ōnoki finally admitted he was wrong?
Neither option would work.
Unless she claimed Ōnoki was on his deathbed and wanted to see him one last time—then maybe there'd be a slim chance.
But even if her stubborn grandfather actually played along with that script, the lie would fall apart the second anyone looked into it.
Provocation was the much better route.
It was old-fashioned, sure, but highly effective. Old-fashioned just meant it was a classic.
And classics became classics because they actually worked.
So Kurotsuchi, flexing her Tsuchikage authority, shamelessly sold Rōshi's image rights straight to Amegakure.
They just had an actor pop a Transformation Jutsu to steal Rōshi's face, strike a dynamic "attack" pose, and shoot a commercial endorsing the little blue soldier pills.
Now, right before the opening credits of recent romance movies, this exact commercial would play: Rōshi leaning against a brick wall, his face dripping with deep sorrow.
Then the dramatic voiceover kicked in: "Sometimes, when your body feels hollowed out, it feels exactly like having your Tailed Beast forcibly extracted. Do not be afraid. With Amegakure-brand Blue Soldier Pills, you too can be as fierce as the Sage of Six Paths!"
Then the fake Rōshi started throwing signature poses alongside an actor in a cheap Four-Tails mascot suit.
The background audio chimed in: "When the Tailed Beast feels good, I feel good too. The essential medicine for building a rock-solid relationship with your Tailed Beast."
Honestly, while the commercial was completely unhinged, the marketing impact was phenomenal.
Even Jiraiya, a guy who actively boycotted movies because he found them far too bland and creatively beneath him, had heard about it.
If even he knew about the ad, you could safely bet that even if Rōshi was hiding in the deepest, most remote mountain forests, the guy would eventually hear the rumors the second he stepped into town for supplies.
Jiraiya wasn't actually broke.
The main reason he was begging the Third for cash was that he didn't want the standard retail version.
He wanted the premium, custom-made, Tailed-Beast-grade soldier pills!
Rumor had it they were absurdly potent.
One full cycle could supposedly turn a guy injected with Orochimaru's custom estradiol back into an absolute beast of a man.
However, exactly because they were custom-made, he had to prepay for an entire cycle upfront before the lab even started synthesis.
That massive price tag pushed it just out of Jiraiya's current budget.
"Absolutely not, Jiraiya! I'm already dead and i'm no longer the head of the Sarutobi clan. I have no right to touch those clan funds!"
"Even if it was my personal stash, it officially belongs to Konohamaru as his inheritance now!
"And Jiraiya, wake up! Have you forgotten exactly what your current perfect Sage Mode relies on?!
"For the sake of a tiny scrap of personal desire, are you seriously willing to flush your combat strength down the drain? Are you even willing to risk dying on the battlefield because of this crap?!
"And it isn't just your own life on the line! What if Naruto desperately needs your strength? Have you even factored him in?! All you care about is yourself! You and your damn dick!"
At this moment, Sarutobi Hiruzen fully channeled his strict teacher persona, viciously chewing Jiraiya out.
Senju Hashirama, who just happened to stroll by and witness the brutal scolding, felt incredibly satisfied.
'Monkey really is still a top-tier sensei after all,' he thought. 'He knows exactly how to beat some sense into his student.'
"You're right." Jiraiya hung his head, his face flushed with genuine shame.
He had definitely gotten carried away.
He nearly forgot that without the Naruto 'Climax' Sage-State Sage Mode—mercifully shortened to the Naruto-Wave Sage Method—he literally possessed no way to quickly and perfectly enter Sage Mode.
This wasn't the era of the Third Shinobi World War anymore, where a guy like Hanzō of the Salamander could casually brand himself a demigod.
The Ōtsutsuki were literally dropping from the sky.
The legendary Ōtsutsuki God was the one true god, and the rank-and-file Ōtsutsuki aliens were the actual demigods.
And Sage Mode—pure natural energy—was an absolute prerequisite for fighting the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Just to score a mere few minutes of fun, he almost permanently nuked his own pathway into Sage Mode.
That was way too reckless!
"As long as you recognize your mistake and correct it, you are still a good kid." Hiruzen patted Jiraiya on the shoulder, immediately pivoting to comfort him.
In truth, however, Hiruzen's internal monologue was a completely different story.
'I'm an Edo Tensei ffs! I literally can't enjoy any of that stuff anymore, and this idiot actually has the nerve to brag about his premium blue pills right to my face?! Isn't that just rubbing salt in the wound?'
To make matters worse, a little while back, when Hiruzen first learned that Edo Tensei could install sensory formulas to feel pain and physical contact again, he specifically tracked down Orochimaru to discreetly ask about... certain applications.
In the end, Orochimaru flat-out told him it wouldn't work.
The glaring biological issue was that while nerve sensation could be artificially simulated, the Edo tensei still didn't actually have blood flow.
Hiruzen had walked away deeply disappointed.
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