Chapter 30: Please Download the Anti-Fraud App
It seemed Uchiha Madara was once again nursing ambitions to unify the Shinobi World.
He had harbored such thoughts in the past, and now, as Hokage with a formidable army at his command, it would be stranger if he didn't.
However, Senju Hashirama would surely stand in his way.
Stelle knew Hashirama to be the most steadfast man she had ever met; even when she had gone to the battlefield to deceive him, she had failed to sway his core beliefs. Relinquishing the rule of the Daimyō was already the absolute limit of Hashirama's concessions.
As if sensing her analytical gaze, Uchiha Madara glanced at her. After a moment of contemplation, he spoke. "Tomorrow, you will report to Kagami's team. You are to carry out missions with them."
"Understood."
The Anbu operated in the truest darkness of the shinobi world, which naturally made it the perfect crucible for forging a warrior. For Madara to assign her there at this particular time… was he planning his next move? Was he preparing to ignite the First Great Shinobi War?
The real question was how he intended to persuade Senju Hashirama.
"Wait." Just as Stelle was about to turn and leave, Madara called her back. "In my capacity as the Second Hokage, I grant you the right to abandon a mission at any time. If you encounter an enemy you cannot defeat, do not hesitate—retreat immediately."
"Is that wise? What if the mission is critical?" she asked, feigning concern. In the original timeline, shinobi from other villages would abandon missions at the mere sight of Konoha's White Fang, the Yellow Flash, or Shisui of the Body Flicker. But those were other villages; she was a Konoha ninja. How could she be so spineless? It would tarnish Konoha's reputation.
"It does not matter," Madara stated, his voice a low rumble of absolute authority. "You are my disciple. My disciple. Your master can resolve any problem you might create."
A beat of silence passed. Stelle found her breath had caught in her throat, her heart giving an unexpected lurch.
Madara, don't be like this, she thought with a sigh. I'm just a heartless machine for collecting mood points.
The next morning, Stelle made her way to the Anbu headquarters adjacent to the Hokage Residence to report for duty. After familiarizing herself with the procedures, she discovered a curious detail: every Anbu member, upon accepting a mission, was also assigned a standing secondary objective—to search for the man in the black robes.
It was clear Madara was dead set on eliminating him.
Perhaps I should grant him his wish, she mused. This has clearly become an obsession for him. Stelle began calculating the potential mood value she could farm if Madara were to "kill" her persona, Mie, weighing the pros and cons.
Her planning was interrupted when she discovered Black Zetsu had resumed his skulking around Konoha.
Late one night, for instance, she was in her yard studying the complex art of Fūinjutsu when she sensed his malevolent presence nearby. Feigning a bout of insomnia, she slipped out of her yard, her movements silent as she leaped across the rooftops. Deftly bypassing the Uchiha clan's patrol routes, she followed him all the way to the Naka Shrine.
Well, well. What could Black Zetsu possibly be doing at the shrine? she thought wryly. He's definitely staking it out, trying to see if Madara has any intention of activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
She shook her head and moved toward the shrine's entrance, intending to take a look inside. But the moment her fingers brushed against the heavy wooden door, her sensory abilities flared, detecting a presence in the distance. She turned, her eyes narrowing. There, perched atop a large tree far in the distance, stood Uchiha Madara.
He stood with his arms crossed, his gaze fixed in her direction, as still as a statue carved from the night itself.
A muscle in Stelle's eye twitched. Was Madara practicing his stealth techniques in the middle of the night? She had been so focused on Black Zetsu that she hadn't noticed her own master, and now she'd been caught red-handed.
With a resigned sigh, Stelle walked to the base of the tree and took the initiative. "Good evening, Master."
Madara looked down at her, his head tilted slightly. "What are you doing here so late?"
Right, time to spin a story.
"I've noticed you coming here quite often lately, Master," she said, injecting a note of innocent curiosity into her voice. "I was curious."
Uchiha Madara didn't seem to doubt her. This disciple of his had been curious about everything since she was a child—she had nearly dug up his entire courtyard once. And as a Sensor Type, it was perfectly normal for her to notice his frequent nocturnal excursions.
"The Naka Shrine is not only the Uchiha clan's ancestral hall but also our meeting place. You know this," he said, a hint of amusement in his tone. "I used to call for you to attend, and you never came. Now you're curious? Very well. I will bring you to the next meeting."
"No, there's no need!" Stelle waved her hands dismissively. "I'm not an Uchiha, so why would I go to an Uchiha meeting? I have no desire to be stared at by a room full of glowing red eyes." She remembered the antics she'd pulled to get sent back to the orphanage all those years ago. It had been so long, yet Madara still remembered.
Sensing a strange shift in Madara's expression, Stelle put the pieces together and understood. He must have been here to study the stone tablet again—the one Black Zetsu had so helpfully altered.
[System, Madara really ought to download an anti-fraud app. If he did, he wouldn't keep getting scammed by Black Zetsu.]
In the days that followed, Stelle began her journey as an Anbu operative. The missions were a grim cocktail of assassination, intelligence gathering, and sowing chaos in other nations—all of them perilous. It was, as they say, only after joining the Anbu that one truly understood the world.
Teaming up with Stelle were Uchiha Kagami and a member of the Senju clan's new generation, a young man named Senju Tetsuya.
It had been some time since she'd last seen Kagami, and he seemed to have changed. He was once gentle and warm, the kind of good-natured person who seemed easy to bully. Now, a quiet killing intent clung to him like a shroud, and he carried the faint, metallic scent of blood. It was clear he had taken many lives recently. Parting, it seemed, was always the fastest catalyst for growth.
Soon, Stelle noticed something was wrong. The first two missions proceeded normally. But after accepting the third, everything began to go awry. It was either an intelligence leak that led to a full-blown ambush or a relentless pursuit by bounty hunters on their return journey. On several occasions, they barely escaped with their lives. Yet, when they investigated the mission records, they found no discrepancies.
That was right. The one Black Zetsu was targeting now was her.
He had already rewritten the stone tablet in the Uchiha clan's lands, and Uchiha Madara had seen the text. However, Madara had shown no intention of following Black Zetsu's script. He felt that as the Hokage of Konohagakure, he could achieve the same goal—unifying the Shinobi World and establishing peace—simply by initiating a war.
This left Black Zetsu anxious. He had urged Mie to find an opportunity to assassinate Ida Stelle, Madara's only disciple, hoping it would make Madara despair of the world completely.
Mie had only laughed, her voice dripping with contempt. "A mere Tokubetsu Jōnin is not worthy of my attention. If you cannot even handle such a trivial matter, what right do you have to call yourself the will of the Sage of Six Paths?"
Black Zetsu had been so furious he nearly lost his composure. This Mie used his resources but refused to kill a single, minor ninja. What was the point of having such an ally?
Unable to command Mie, Black Zetsu simply resorted to his old tricks, diverting trouble and orchestrating scenarios where Ida Stelle might "accidentally" die on a mission.
For Stelle, this was a perfect opportunity to farm mood values.
She began a battle of wits and courage against Black Zetsu. Out of seven missions, four were fraught with deadly peril, but she always managed to turn the tables, transforming disaster into triumph. In the process, her strength grew by leaps and bounds, and she quickly earned her place as one of Konoha's elite ninja.
Teaming up with her, Uchiha Kagami and Senju Tetsuya also improved at a startling rate under the constant, high-pressure situations. But after a few more near-death experiences, Senju Tetsuya finally cracked.
"Stelle, it's not that I don't want to be on your team," he began, his face a mask of exaggerated terror, "it's just… you're too much of a jinx!" He recoiled as if she were a walking plague. "My mom said I'm the most promising member of the Senju clan's current generation! I'm supposed to be the future director of the Konoha Hospital! If I keep doing these disaster-prone missions with you, my future is going to be over before it starts! I'm applying for a team change right now! Goodbye, and I hope we never meet again!"
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