My ally's pieces are my pieces

Madara, Madara, Madara!

What was so good about that evil Madara Uchiha?

Big brother, why were you still thinking about Madara Uchiha at a time like this?!

Tobirama Senju silently berated his brother a few times, but in front of an outsider like Shirou Emiya, he still wanted to preserve a little of his brother's dignity.

"Big brother!"

Tobirama Senju reached out and pressed a hand onto his brother's shoulder, urging him to wake from the lingering panic of his nightmare. "Calm down a little..."

"Who?!"

Hashirama Senju instinctively lifted his head.

"So it's Tobirama..."

When Hashirama Senju saw his younger brother, the panic on his face gradually settled. He recalled the nightmare he had just experienced with lingering fear.

"Tobirama..."

Hashirama Senju looked at his hands, seemingly unable to believe that they had been covered in his old friend's blood in the dream. "I dreamed that I... killed Madara."

"Big brother!"

Tobirama Senju's expression changed.

"No..."

"That wasn't a dream..."

Hashirama Senju's body suddenly seemed to collapse. His hands drooped weakly at his sides, and his face was clearly filled with unspeakable pain and unease.

"Tobirama."

"I think..."

Hashirama Senju spoke slowly as he struggled to raise a hand. His palm pressed against his forehead, and two streams of hot tears slowly rolled down from his eyes.

"I really killed Madara..."

"..."

Tobirama Senju fell silent for a while.

Although Tobirama Senju was very satisfied with his brother's resolve in killing Madara Uchiha, he also knew that his brother would certainly grieve over Madara Uchiha's death.

Tobirama Senju had personally witnessed the friendship his brother and that evil man had formed amid the feud between their two clans. It was a bond his brother had been willing to protect even at the cost of his life.

Unfortunately...

Their bond had ultimately been severed.

And it had been Hashirama Senju himself who severed that bond stretching back to the Warring States Period, ending it by personally killing Madara Uchiha.

"Big brother."

Tobirama Senju patted his brother's shoulder and solemnly persuaded him, "Don't forget, Madara wanted to use the Nine-Tails to destroy Konoha. You chose to kill him in order to protect the village everyone built together..."

"To protect the village..."

Hashirama Senju's gaze became somewhat vacant.

To protect the village...

It was precisely because that thought had arisen within him...

That he had made up his mind to kill his closest friend in battle.

Konoha had been founded by him and Madara Uchiha together. Even the name Konoha had been personally chosen by Madara Uchiha.

And...

During that battle...

Madara had never truly resolved to kill him.

Madara Uchiha had still been the same as before, caring nothing for anything. He thought that once the battle ended, he could throw a childish tantrum and make Hashirama yield, forcing him to follow his wishes and destroy the Konoha they had built together...

But...

Hashirama Senju knew very clearly.

His regard for Konoha had already surpassed his friendship with Madara. In his heart, he had already formed the resolve to kill anyone in order to protect Konoha.

That resolve had led him to kill Madara in the end.

Yet that was exactly why Hashirama Senju felt even more heartbroken. In order to protect Konoha, he had personally killed his friend and abandoned the friendship they had painstakingly forged over so many years.

How painful...

The unbearable pain of life itself.

Hashirama Senju weakly clutched the blanket, sitting blankly on the bed as tears streamed down his face. His mind replayed his past with Madara Uchiha.

"Let the patient rest for a while first."

Shirou Emiya stood up and took the initiative to speak. "The patient's mind is unsettled right now. It would be better to let him stay here alone for a while."

"And..."

"For now, don't let him use Chakra to recover from his injuries. Avoid causing the cells in his body to divide too quickly. That would be harmful to him..."

"All right."

Tobirama Senju helped his brother lie back down.

"..."

Hashirama Senju blankly lay back down on the hospital bed. He did not even notice Shirou Emiya beside him, while tears continued to slowly fall from his eyes.

"Big brother."

"Rest a little longer."

Tobirama Senju reached out to tuck the blanket over him and continued, "Don't use Chakra during this time. Keep your body's self-healing ability under control."

"Wait..."

Hashirama Senju suddenly grabbed his younger brother and asked, "Tobirama, was Madara's body brought back to the village too?"

"The body has already been dealt with and buried."

Tobirama Senju's eyes flickered slightly.

This was a lie Tobirama Senju told his brother.

Tobirama Senju had hidden Madara Uchiha's body in the mountains beforehand.

After all, Madara Uchiha was the strongest of the Uchiha Clan. He possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan, the highest level of the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan Kekkei Genkai.

No matter how one looked at it, Madara Uchiha's corpse possessed considerable research value. Tobirama Senju wanted to dissect Madara Uchiha's body and discover how to solve the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan problem, so naturally he did not want to waste this opportunity.

Besides...

Tobirama Senju had hated Madara Uchiha since childhood, so naturally he did not care whether such research would desecrate Madara Uchiha's corpse.

Still...

This was certainly something he had to hide from his brother.

Yet it did not escape Shirou Emiya.

Shirou Emiya had been observing the exchange between the Senju brothers. Noticing the odd look in Tobirama Senju's eyes, he recalled something extremely interesting.

As a transmigrator, Shirou Emiya had seen this period of Konoha's history in his memories from his past life. He also knew what became of Tobirama Senju's hidden Madara Uchiha corpse.

A smile curled at Shirou Emiya's lips.

If nothing unexpected happened, perhaps he knew where his ally from a thousand years ago was.

My piece...

No, my ally...

The pieces in my ally's hands are also my pieces...

I hope my ally, Mr. Black Zetsu, can forgive my betrayal back then...

In this era, I will turn over a new leaf...

Deep in the mountains of Konoha.

Inside a hidden Secret Chamber in a cave.

A pitch-black creature quietly emerged from the ground.

This strange-looking black creature was the ally Shirou Emiya had mentioned, Black Zetsu. Its life essence was extraordinarily unique, allowing it to survive for more than a thousand years.

Black Zetsu stood in the Secret Chamber, staring blankly at the coffin before it, seemingly unable to believe what was happening before its eyes.

"How did Madara Uchiha die?"

What was going on?

How had Madara Uchiha been killed?!

This was the most suitable piece it had found in a thousand years.

The previous most suitable piece had been Shirou Emiya a thousand years ago. His genius intellect and great dream had even made him more suitable than Indra.

Yet that piece had been too naive. In the end, he believed Ashura's nonsense and actually thought the Shinobi World would eventually become a paradise where everyone lived happily under the ideals of the Ninja Sect and Medical Ninja!

Too naive...

He had actually believed Chakra was a force that brought happiness...

Human vision was still too shortsighted. They simply did not understand their nature of slaughtering one another over resources. Any powerful force would inevitably become an increasingly efficient weapon for killing!

What a pity...

Shirou Emiya had been so intelligent...

Why had he happened to be such a kindhearted good man, persuaded by the beautiful future Ashura described?

Black Zetsu could not help missing its once-favorite piece even more. In that crude Ancient Era, Shirou Emiya had actually had his Summoning Beast, the Slug, conduct human experiments on his body in Shikkotsu Forest, thereby obtaining a portion of the God Tree's and the Sage of Six Paths' power!

They had been so close...

They could have succeeded!

They could even have crushed everything belonging to the Sage of Six Paths!

What a pity...

Shirou Emiya had been too obsessed with his naive dream.

Of course.

If Shirou Emiya had not been so obsessed with that supposedly great dream, he would not have been used by it, the mastermind behind the scenes. Yet it was also because of that supposedly great dream that he had been persuaded by that idiot Ashura and betrayed it!

He had even entrusted his dream to Ashura!

Hmph...

If he were still alive...

He would definitely regret trusting that idiot Ashura!

What a terrible shame...

Shirou Emiya, who possessed astonishing wisdom in human medical techniques, Shirou Emiya, who was so naively kind that he was almost foolish—he had been its favorite piece in a thousand years...

By comparison...

This piece, Madara Uchiha, was simply too arrogant and conceited.

It had not even seen the slightest hope of the plan succeeding before discovering that its plan seemed destined to die prematurely with Madara Uchiha's death...

"Madara is dead..."

"Do I have to keep waiting?"

"Should I just take Madara's eyes first? At the very least, they're a pair of Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan..."

Just as Black Zetsu was lamenting the bleakness of the future, it suddenly sensed movement from within the sealed coffin. Startled, it hurriedly submerged itself back into the ground.

Black Zetsu's ability was extremely peculiar.

Its body entering the earth was like entering water.

Yet it did not leave at once. Instead, it hid itself once more in a concealed corner of the Secret Chamber, cautiously observing the movements within the tightly sealed coffin.