"Well said Monkey!"
Overhearing the scolding, Hashirama couldn't help but chime in with pure praise.
"Lord First? What are you doing here?"
Hiruzen and Jiraiya whipped around toward the voice, freezing dead in their tracks.
"Why can't I be here?" Senju Hashirama blinked in confusion.
Why were these two acting so incredibly spooked?
"Lord First, shouldn't you be babysitting Uchiha Madara?" Hiruzen stepped forward, his guard instantly rising.
Naturally, they already knew Madara had also been resurrected through the Edo Tensei.
The Second Hokage had even personally assured them that Madara currently possessed no combat strength, and since Hashirama was practically glued to his side, there was no need to panic.
However, they still needed to stay on high alert if Madara ever started operating solo.
There was nothing worth stealing in the other shinobi villages, so the main hotspot they had to watch was Amegakure. And they had done exactly that.
But now? The First Hokage had just strolled up to them completely alone.
Then where the hell was Madara, the guy the First Hokage was specifically supposed to be monitoring?
The two Konoha shinobi exchanged a loaded glance, a terrible feeling rising in their guts.
"Oh, Madara? He's currently wrapped up in a romance down in Sunagakure. Don't worry about him." Hashirama casually waved off the concern.
"Who? Uchiha Madara? A romance?" Jiraiya's jaw hit the floor, letting out a bizarre squawk.
How did those two phrases even fit into the same sentence?
If anyone was feeling pent-up enough to go chasing a geriatric romance, that candidate absolutely should have been his naturally depraved teacher, Sarutobi Hiruzen, right?
Hiruzen was deeply shocked as well, though he managed to keep his mouth shut.
'Uchiha Madara is actually a pure-love warrior?' he thought frantically.
You had to understand, Hiruzen's own zombie body had firmly confirmed that Edo Tensei shinobi literally couldn't perform those kinds of activities.
And yet Uchiha Madara was still actively hunting for a twilight romance?
Could this be the legendary spiritual love?
Purely platonic affection?
Wait! He had almost let himself get led astray!
How could a bloodthirsty warmonger like Uchiha Madara possibly fall in love?
'Even if he did, it absolutely should have been with...'
Hiruzen shot a subtle glance at the First Hokage standing right in front of him, who was currently scratching his head and laughing like an idiot.
Bingo! There definitely had to be something highly suspicious going on here!
"Lord First, may I ask who exactly Uchiha Madara's twilight-romance partner is?" Hiruzen asked cautiously.
"Chiyo from Sunagakure." Hashirama answered straight out, then let out a heavy sigh. "Actually, I already tried talking Madara out of it. I told him he and Chiyo are separated by an entire generation, but he stubbornly insisted that he likes them young."
"Huh? Chiyo? Young?"
"...Well, compared to Madara, I suppose she really is."
"..."
The atmosphere suddenly flatlined into dead silence.
After a brief moment of crushing awkwardness, Hiruzen and Jiraiya chewed on the intel, and the more they thought about it, the more wrong it felt.
Ten parts wrong.
No, at least nine parts wrong!
This simply did not fit Madara's character at all. Madara might indeed be a twisted psychopath, but he absolutely shouldn't be twisted in that specific direction.
Wasn't he just blatantly stealing their unique character traits?
In any story, two characters rocking the exact same gimmick were natural enemies!
Uchiha Madara definitely had a scheme!
"Wait... uh, never mind. Lord First, the old man and I still have some urgent business to handle, so we'll be taking our leave." Jiraiya suddenly jolted as if he'd remembered something critical, quickly covering his tracks so he wouldn't spill it in front of Hashirama.
After bidding Hashirama farewell, the two quickly ducked into a secluded alley.
Only then did Jiraiya speak up with a dead serious expression.
"Old man, we have a massive problem. Madara definitely has a scheme."
"You know something?" Hiruzen asked sharply.
"Mm. When I went to visit Orochimaru earlier, he had just invited Tsunade into the lab for an experiment involving a forbidden resurrection jutsu." Jiraiya nodded gravely.
"A forbidden resurrection jutsu? What the hell is that traitorous disciple plotting now?" Hiruzen's face turned incredibly ugly.
"But what does any of that have to do with Chiyo?"
"At the time, Orochimaru was listing off the few forbidden resurrection techniques currently known to the shinobi world. Aside from Nagato's Rinnegan technique, Rinne Tensei, there was also the forbidden jutsu being tested by his test subject right then—Ryūmei Tensei.
Even though Tsunade was supervising, I was still worried they might push things too far. Forbidden resurrection techniques always demand a horrific price, so I stayed behind and watched the test.
In the end, I never expected that Makoto's prediction about it failing would actually come true. After the jutsu failed, they dropped the project. Tsunade just replenished the life force of the kunoichi named Ryūzetsu, and that was that.
But then Orochimaru specifically mentioned that, as expected, a young shinobi from a minor place like Kusagakure still couldn't hold a candle to the ultimate forbidden technique developed by Chiyo of Sunagakure." Jiraiya explained the connection perfectly.
Regarding Ryūzetsu's Ryūmei Tensei, Makoto had already felt at the time that the jutsu was way too bugged to be true.
Later, after carefully dissecting the details, he finally spotted the glaring plot hole.
In the Blood Prison movie, Naruto hadn't actually died.
He had merely been hovering in a near-death state.
The simplest proof was basic lore: if a jinchūriki actually died, the Tailed Beast inside them would die right along with them.
Even if Ryūzetsu truly possessed more raw chakra than Chiyo and could revive Naruto on her own, did she seriously have enough chakra to revive half of the Nine-Tails too? Absolutely not.
So back then, Naruto could only have been teetering on the brink of death, or locked in a state of suspended animation.
Only Chiyo, while reviving Gaara counted as a genuine, true resurrection.
Gaara's corpse had already gone completely cold—way too cold to just "act while it was still warm."
"So what you're saying is, Madara doesn't actually want a twilight romance with Chiyo. He wants Chiyo to revive him!" Hiruzen's eyes widened as the pieces clicked into place.
"Exactly. We have to stop Madara!" Jiraiya tightly clenched his fist. "This concerns the safety of the entire shinobi world."
"There's no time to waste. We split up! I'll go brief Lord Second on this immediately, and Jiraiya, you will be responsible for stopping Madara." Hiruzen laid out the tactical plan with a firm nod.
"Stop Madara? How the hell am I supposed to stop him? Do I just walk up and fight the guy directly?" Jiraiya asked, completely lost.
"No. To avoid tipping him off, you will be responsible for swooping in and winning over Chiyo's heart. Just stall him and wait for backup after Lord Second processes the intel and makes a strategic decision." Hiruzen shook his head, instantly shooting down the combat route.
"What?! Me?!" Jiraiya pointed a trembling finger at his own chest in sheer disbelief.
"That's right! Jiraiya, since you successfully authored the Make-Out series, you must possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the intricate matters between men and women. You are a certified master of romance! I leave this crucial mission in your capable hands." Hiruzen reached out and solemnly patted Jiraiya on the shoulder.
"..."
Even though Jiraiya was technically being praised, he didn't feel a single ounce of joy!
'Master of romance?' he thought bitterly. 'If I was truly a master of romance, would I still be hopelessly single right now, forced to throw cash at the red-light district every time I'm horny?'
And honestly, something about this division of labor felt incredibly rigged.
Why did this old bastard get the ridiculously easy job of just delivering a message to the Second Hokage?
"Old man, you make a solid point. But I only possess theoretical knowledge! I have absolutely no practical experience. This highly delicate operation still requires the steady hand of the highly respected and deeply experienced Third Hokage!
"We'll go together! When master and disciple unite, their edge cuts through solid gold! She's merely an old woman. Between the combined charm of the two of us, won't we have her completely swooning in no time? As for informing Lord Second, a basic chore like that can easily be handled by a Shadow Clone."
Jiraiya knew there was no escaping the mission, so he threw caution to the wind and ruthlessly dragged the Third Hokage down into the trenches with him.
If one of them had to go suffer, then they were both going to suffer!