In the end, Nagato still went down the path of calling himself a "god."
In the original history, Konan had already had strong objections to this.
Now that she had seen a "real" god, her objections were even stronger.
After hearing that Nagato had declared himself a god before the Amegakure shinobi, Konan hurriedly went to find him.
"Nagato, you actually called yourself a 'god.' Do you really think you're already so powerful that you can compare yourself to His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor?"
Nagato answered, "Konan, I'm not an idiot. How could I possibly be that arrogant?"
"This Heavenly Emperor you believe in only needed to take out a single pill to completely transform my body. I don't think I'm remotely comparable to Him."
Hearing Nagato's explanation, Konan let out a huge sigh of relief.
But she immediately asked again, "Then why are you calling yourself a 'god'?"
Nagato explained, "Because I know that I, too, can wield the power of a god."
Konan stared at him blankly.
"The power of a god? What's that?"
Nagato leisurely replied, "You were the one who told me what divine power is."
"The power of resurrection."
Konan was shocked.
"What? Resurrection?!"
Nagato pointed at his eyes and said with certainty,
"That's right. Within the Rinnegan, I found a genuine 'resurrection technique.'"
"If I can command the power to bring the dead back to life, then I should qualify as a god, shouldn't I?"
"Of course I can't compare myself to the Heavenly Emperor, but aside from Him, is there any god in this world who can compare to me?"
"This... this..."
This time, Konan truly did not know what to say.
But she quickly thought it through.
There really was nothing wrong with Nagato calling himself a god.
Just as he had said, there was no second god under heaven who could compare to him.
As long as His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor did not mind, Nagato calling himself a god posed no problem whatsoever.
It could also greatly boost morale.
For example, right now, after the Amegakure shinobi heard that Lord Nagato was a god, their confidence soared.
They no longer worried much about the three Great Shinobi Villages marching straight to their doorstep.
Besides, Hanzō had called himself a demigod.
Nagato had killed him.
So Nagato calling himself a god was perfectly reasonable.
Konan therefore stopped worrying about the matter and instead began worrying about Nagato's body.
Looking at him, she asked,
"Nagato, when you dealt with more than a thousand enemies before, you still had plenty of strength left."
"This time there will be more than forty times as many enemies."
"I'm not worried that you won't be able to destroy them, but can your body endure it?"
Nagato smiled.
"Konan, don't worry. I'll definitely be able to hold out."
"And if I truly can't, isn't His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor still there?"
Konan immediately felt that this made perfect sense.
She nodded.
"You're right. If your body really develops a problem, I'll find a way to ask His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor for another blessing."
With their overall strategy decided, the two stopped discussing the coming war and turned instead to how they should rebuild Amegakure.
Rainproofing.
Leak prevention.
Moisture control.
Flood drainage.
Every factor needed to be discussed repeatedly.
They wanted to make absolutely certain that no serious flaw remained that might later waste enormous amounts of manpower.
The youthful figures of the boy and girl huddled together.
Yet they were earnestly trying their best to raise a sky over a nation that had done nothing but weep.
...
The Land of Demons truly was an isolated backwater of the shinobi world.
By the time the great events in the Land of Rain had spread throughout the shinobi world, Uchiha Yoru, who was still in the Land of Demons, had yet to hear anything about them.
While Nagato and Konan were discussing Amegakure's reconstruction plans and painstakingly attempting to establish a model for the entire Land of Rain...
Uchiha Yoru was examining the results of Tobirama Senju's research.
At this moment, Tobirama Senju had already been summoned through Edo Tensei once again.
Through this method, he had returned from Yoru's Purple Mansion world to the real world.
This time, it was visibly obvious that despite using the highest-grade sacrifice for Edo Tensei, Tobirama's condition had still deteriorated.
Perhaps spending time inside the Purple Mansion world had exposed him to Uchiha Yoru's spiritual power and divine power.
Perhaps he had simply experienced too much subjective time there.
Whatever the cause, construction of the Hall of Heroes—which theoretically should nurture and restore souls—had become an urgent matter that could no longer be delayed.
After finishing his explanation, Tobirama said to Uchiha Yoru,
"My work is finished."
"What happens next depends on you."
He pounded his lower back and complained,
"When I developed Edo Tensei, I never imagined I would someday spend such a long time separated from the Pure Land."
"Who would have thought that even an Edo Tensei body could develop a sensation of aging because the soul itself is exhausted?"
"My back actually aches."
"You brat had better get to work quickly."
"Build that Hall of Heroes as soon as possible so I can finally get some proper rest."
Uchiha Yoru stared at the complicated design plans and clicked his tongue repeatedly.
There were far too many sections he simply could not understand.
Some parts made his head spin just by looking at them.
Tobirama Senju truly deserved his reputation as the shinobi world's greatest expert in forbidden techniques.
Through the accelerated subjective time inside the soul-space, Tobirama had stretched a single day into more than six months.
Even so, designing such an enormous divine-power project from scratch in such a short amount of time was an achievement bordering on miraculous.
Uchiha Yoru admired Tobirama's research ability immensely.
But he was not remotely worried about Tobirama demanding that he accelerate construction.
Yoru raised one finger.
"If you can finish the design in one day, then I can finish construction in two!"
Tobirama stared at him in disbelief.
"That's impossible!"
The divine-power sealing formation he had designed was a genuine nation-scale engineering project.
The Land of Demons was not particularly large, but it was still a medium-sized country spanning roughly 1,150 kilometers east to west and 1,320 kilometers north to south.
The sealing formation itself was a colossal structure nine hundred kilometers in diameter.
The canals and trenches serving as the formation's framework alone had a combined length of twenty thousand kilometers.
Tobirama had already done everything possible to take advantage of the Land of Demons' terrain, incorporating natural rivers wherever possible to reduce the workload.
Even then, more than six thousand kilometers of artificial channels still needed to be excavated.
Completing such a massive project in only two days?
Wasn't that nonsense?
Uchiha Yoru grinned.
"Second Hokage, want to make a bet?"
Tobirama spat disdainfully.
"Peh! Do you think I'm my elder brother?"
"I'd rather see for myself just how you intend to complete such an enormous project."
Yoru laughed.
"The answer is actually very simple."
"More people means more strength."
Tobirama sneered.
"Brat, do you have any idea how troublesome mobilizing labor is?"
"Given the size of the Land of Demons, simply organizing all that manpower would take more than three days."
"Besides, the Land of Demons doesn't have a large population."
"Even if you mobilized everyone, you still wouldn't have enough workers."
Uchiha Yoru waved repeatedly.
"Relax, relax. I'm not mobilizing the people of the Land of Demons."
"I only need to mobilize myself."
Uchiha Yoru truly intended to mobilize himself.
In his understanding of the world, the principle that science and technology were the foremost productive forces was treated as truth.
It was practically an unshakable creed.
Translated into the language of the shinobi world, that principle became:
Ninjutsu is the foremost productive force.
Uchiha Yoru brought Tobirama Senju and Miwa Masayo to one of the construction nodes.
The mountains here were steep.
The forest was sparse.
Loose, brittle gravel covered the ground everywhere.
Yoru scratched his head and sighed.
"This mountain can't retain water at all."
"When it rains, there are floods."
"When it doesn't, there's drought."
"No wonder the Land of Demons is so barren."
Tobirama's sluggish condition had become even more obvious.
He had changed into loose clothing and stood hunched over with his hands tucked into his sleeves.
Weakly, he said,
"Exactly."
"That's why, according to your requirements, a reservoir must be constructed here."
"It will collect rainwater and release it gradually."
"Only then can we create a stable current to serve as the operational foundation for this nation-scale sealing formation."
At this point, Tobirama curiously asked,
"Combining a giant sealing formation with waterworks... how did you come up with that?"
Uchiha Yoru shook his head without answering.
There was no way to properly explain it.
To him, this was simply common sense.
The great history of China had proven that massive public works naturally possessed the ability to bind people together.
And among all major projects, those capable of producing lasting positive effects were, first and foremost, foundational waterworks.
Especially projects that combined irrigation, disaster prevention, and transportation.
Once completed, they could dramatically raise the living standards of countless people.
Afterward, those projects would become inseparable from their lives.
Naturally, people would place their hopes and faith upon the continuously flowing water.
Their faith would then flow steadily toward the central nexus of that system.
To tell the truth, faith born in this manner possessed a purity that simple worship of a god could never match.
Such pure faith power was perfectly suited to sustaining heroic spirits.
It would not contain excessive desires and miscellaneous impurities that could distort spiritual bodies which had already lost the grounding foundation of physical life.
Seeing that Uchiha Yoru had no intention of explaining, Tobirama did not press him.
Instead, he changed the subject.
"The terrain here is troublesome, but the real problem is scale."
"I calculated the workload required for a reservoir large enough to meet our needs."
"Even I was startled."
"In a place this deserted, how exactly do you intend to complete millions of cubic meters of earthwork, not to mention the even larger amount of construction labor?"
Uchiha Yoru smiled slightly.
"Using ninjutsu and senjutsu, of course."
With that, he clasped his hands together.
Powerful natural energy and chakra surged from his body.
They converged outside him and fused into overwhelmingly powerful senjutsu chakra before flowing back toward his hands, where they formed the structure of a technique.
Sage Art: Earth Release: Mountain-Splitting Earth Rend
Boom—
The mountain began collapsing with a thunderous roar.
The entire mountain underwent a tremendous transformation.
The rough, fractured gravel bounced violently like popcorn being tossed in a pan.
Beneath the gravel layer, solid rock rapidly shattered and sank.
While the overall height of the terrain remained unchanged, countless underground channels for water were carved beneath the surface.
Those channels wound their way forward and ultimately converged beneath the gravel accumulation zone at the foot of the mountain.
Beneath that enormous fan-shaped region lay a vast storage space.
According to their calculations and observations, it was large enough to store an entire year's worth of rainfall from all the nearby mountains.
At the same time, it could supply sufficient water to the planned canal network, ensuring a continuous flow throughout the entire year.
Uchiha Yoru's ninjutsu left Tobirama Senju stunned.
He knew that this brat had once called himself "Uchiha Hashirama."
He had also nearly had his jaw drop when he first saw Yoru use Wood Release.
But back then, Uchiha Yoru had been very restrained.
He had yet to decide to openly break with the Third Hokage and constantly controlled his chakra usage.
Now, however, Uchiha Yoru no longer had any such reservations.
When he cast ninjutsu, he did so freely and expansively, pouring out chakra and natural energy without restraint.
Although Yoru was using Earth Release senjutsu, the feeling it gave Tobirama was incredibly familiar.
That sensation of chakra so abundant it practically overflowed.
That style of ninjutsu powerful enough to reshape the terrain with a casual gesture.
That way of encountering an enemy and ignoring elaborate techniques, simply burying them beneath overwhelmingly powerful Sage Arts.
Hey.
This Uchiha was becoming more and more like Hashirama Senju.
Just looking at him was irritating!
Feeling depressed, Tobirama instinctively began nitpicking.
"The underground construction is finished."
"What about the surface dam?"
"And the countless details that still need to be refined?"
"What about spillways and automated control structures?"
"Are you going to do all of that yourself too?"
Uchiha Yoru chuckled and clapped his hands together once again.
Sage Art: Earth Release: Ten-Thousand-Li Earth-Flow Wall
The ground at the foot of the mountain immediately rose.
A towering cliff shot upward in one breath, reaching a height of one hundred meters before finally trembling to a stop.
Next, Uchiha Yoru dispersed the remaining senjutsu chakra.
Then another enormous wave of chakra and natural energy surged from his body.
He clasped his hands together and cast another Sage Art.
Sage Art: Water Release: Heavenly River Downpour
In an instant, dark clouds gathered.
Lightning flashed.
Thunder roared.
A torrential rain crashed onto the surrounding mountains like a waterfall.
Almost in the blink of an eye, mountain floods erupted.
But unlike before, the channels beneath the gravel layer absorbed enormous quantities of floodwater.
The water vanished beneath the gravel and flowed invisibly underground.
The floodwater had not even traveled halfway down the mountain before disappearing completely beneath the loose stone.
Not a single splash remained visible.
After repeatedly slowing as it passed through the gravel layer, the floodwater lost most of its destructive momentum.
It could no longer form a disaster.
The underground current reached the gravel accumulation zone.
There, too, it remained hidden beneath the thick layer of stone.
Although large amounts of spring water had already begun gushing out from the planned canal location below, not a trace of open water could yet be seen inside the reservoir.
Protected beneath the thick gravel, evaporation would be greatly reduced.
This would serve as the reservoir's guaranteed reserve supply.
As the rain continued, the stored water gradually accumulated.
The water level rose until it finally submerged the gravel layer.
At last, a broad but shallow lake formed behind the dam created by the Ten-Thousand-Li Earth-Flow Wall.
Only then did Uchiha Yoru stop using his Sage Art.
The clouds dispersed.
The rain ceased.
Under the sunlight, a rainbow stretched between the lake and the mountains.
The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful.
Uchiha Yoru sighed in admiration.
"This is the correct way to use ninjutsu."
Tobirama Senju silently nodded.
This was the first time he had truly witnessed the magnificent potential of ninjutsu and senjutsu when used for construction.
His heart was deeply shaken.
Emotions surged through him.
Because Uchiha Yoru's requirements had repeatedly mentioned concepts such as the needs of civilization and societal development, Tobirama had frequently communicated with the Heavenly Emperor controlled by Uchiha Yoru during his research.
Although those conversations had annoyed Uchiha Yoru to no end, they had also forced Yoru to organize his own knowledge and complete much of his thinking regarding civilization.
Uchiha Yoru vaguely realized that his own approach would need to change in the future.
If even Uchiha Yoru had gained such insights, then the changes in Tobirama Senju—who had been exposed to ideas from a far higher level of civilization—were naturally even greater.
He could not help beginning to reflect on his past.
His elder brother Hashirama Senju had indeed been absurdly naïve.
But perhaps the things Tobirama himself had done before his death had not been particularly successful either.
Otherwise, why had Konoha fallen into its current predicament?
Policies he had once been extremely proud of now appeared riddled with flaws when viewed from a higher perspective.
For example, placing the entire Uchiha Clan into the Military Police Force had effectively positioned them against the entirety of Konoha.
That policy had indeed restricted the development of the Uchiha Clan.
But it had also become one of the roots of internal division within Konoha, causing the shinobi clans to split into increasingly distinct factions.
Because the Uchiha had been shaped into a common enemy within the village, the other clans had little choice but to gather around Hiruzen Sarutobi and form a bloc to counterbalance them.
That effectively placed Hiruzen Sarutobi in the same position Hashirama Senju had once occupied.
But there was no longer any mechanism capable of restraining him.
Konoha's future had been wagered entirely on Hiruzen Sarutobi's personal ability and morality.
Hashirama Senju had been truly selfless.
He had been willing to sacrifice his own family for the greater whole.
By dissolving the Senju Clan into Konoha itself, he had turned his clan into one of the foundations upon which the village existed.
Only because of that had everything Konoha possessed today become possible.
But Hiruzen Sarutobi was different.
There was nothing inherently wrong with his personal morality.
However, when interests conflicted, he placed his own clan first and Konoha second.
As a result, clans with powerful supporters among the leadership—or clans that possessed strong methods of self-preservation—gained tremendous benefits and expanded wildly.
The Sarutobi Clan.
The Koharu Clan.
The Homura Clan.
Even the Ino–Shika–Chō clans.
Meanwhile, after their interests were encroached upon, clans responsible for bearing Konoha's burdens received no proper compensation.
As they continued making tremendous sacrifices for the village, they gradually declined toward extinction.
The Hatake Clan.
The Kurama Clan.
The Gekkō Clan.
And others.
The Sarutobi Clan was the clearest example.
Its population, influence, and overall strength had already surpassed the Uchiha Clan, quietly making it Konoha's true number-one great clan.
After examining everything in depth, Tobirama Senju had no choice but to admit that Konoha had already begun showing signs of another internal fracture.
And this was with Konoha being fortunate enough that its greatest hidden explosive—the Military Police Force—had never been detonated.
When Tobirama originally established the Military Police Force, his political experience had still been insufficient.
In order to make the department more attractive to the Uchiha, he had stuffed far too many responsibilities into it.
To ordinary Konoha villagers, the Military Police Force merely patrolled the streets, cleared illegal stalls, mediated disputes between villagers, and caught thieves.
But in reality, the organization also possessed authority over counterintelligence, public security, commercial administration, legislative matters, prison management, and much more.
It even possessed completely independent personnel and financial authority.
In the truest sense, it was a village within the village.
If properly utilized, the Military Police Force could fully compete with the Hokage's administration.
It might even reduce the Hokage himself into an empty figurehead.
How fortunate.
The Uchiha Clan had always been naïve enough.
They had confined themselves almost entirely to the visible surface functions of the Military Police Force and had never truly operated this immensely powerful institution to its full potential.
Tobirama Senju now felt that his greatest stroke of luck was that Uchiha Yoru had been born late enough.
If this brat had appeared twenty years earlier and taken Uchiha Fugaku's position...
The consequences were almost unimaginable.
Ironically, the seemingly naïve First Hokage and his seemingly naïve internal policies had actually become the foundation that allowed Konoha to survive until today.
After undergoing so much higher-level reflection, Tobirama Senju now deeply agreed with Uchiha Yoru's earlier remark.
Once this reservoir was completed, they only needed to add a canal connecting it to the original river.
That seasonal river would then become a permanent river flowing throughout the year.
With stable and abundant water, irrigation would become reliable.
Agricultural output would multiply.
Population growth and economic prosperity would follow naturally.
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