Brothers

"Tobirama! Stop sleeping standing up! Get up now! Something's wrong!"

Hashirama increased the force and frequency of the shaking, his anxious voice echoing across the eerily quiet grassland.

However, no matter how hard Hashirama tried, Tobirama Senju Hashirama not wake up. His face, which had been peaceful and serene in his slumber, was now replaced by deep impatience.

Shaking won't work... Hashirama stopped moving, his brows furrowed, and a serious expression appeared on his face.

My brother's condition is clearly not a normal deep sleep. Could it be... that we should use a more direct method?

A thought involuntarily popped into his Hashirama, but Hashirama immediately rejected it. No, no! Absolutely not! That's Tobirama! His own younger brother!

Although he's usually serious and loves to lecture people, and he's even created a whole bunch of troublesome forbidden techniques, waking him up that way is just too hurtful and disrespectful! What if Tobirama gets angry when he wakes up?

But... it seems there's no other way right now.

This place is so strange. I just regained consciousness, and my younger brother isn't responding no matter how I call him. As the older brother, I can't just stand by and watch him sleep like this, can I? What if he's in danger?

I'm the eldest brother! It's only right for an older brother to help his younger brother when he's in trouble! Even if the method might be a bit... well, it's all due to the circumstances, there was no other way! Tobirama should... understand, right? Probably...

The slight hesitation and "guilt as an older brother" in his heart lasted only a fleeting moment before being completely overwhelmed by Hashirama Senju's usual sense of responsibility, which was a mix of naivety and action-orientedness.

His gaze became incredibly "firm," and then, Hashirama slowly raised his large, fan-like hand, palm facing Tobirama Senju's sleepy face, which was filled with impatience.

With all his might, he prepared to deliver a powerful slap, full of brotherly love and intended to be effective!

"Smack."

A crisp and decisive light sound.

It wasn't the sound of a slap landing on a face.

Instead, it was a hand that firmly grasped Hashirama's wrist as he was about to fall, mid-air.

Finally, Tobirama Senju's crimson pupils opened fully, now fixed on his elder brother's weapon hovering inches from his cheek.

Those eyes held no trace of the confusion of just waking up, only a clear, icy coldness suppressing rage.

"Big brother... what do you want to do?"

"Oh! Tobirama, you're finally awake! That's great!"

Hashirama Senju instantly forgot the embarrassment of trying to physically wake his brother, and a bright, relieved smile bloomed on his face, as if he wasn't the one who had just wanted to slap his brother.

He grabbed Tobirama's wrist and pointed anxiously around, "Look around! Quickly analyze this place, what the hell is this? I remember we... we should be dead, right? But something feels off here."

Tobirama Senju silently withdrew his hand, glancing at his elder brother with a mixture of speechlessness, disdain, and anger.

He decided to make a note of the fact that the other party had tried to wake him up using such a violent method as slapping, and settle the score later. Right now, as Hashirama said, analyzing the current situation was indeed the top priority.

He closed his eyes, carefully sensing himself and his surroundings. "..." After a moment of silence, Tobirama slowly opened his eyes, his brows furrowed. "... It's not Impure World Reincarnation. I don't feel my soul being forcibly bound or corrupted, nor can I sense the caster's chakra connection and controlling will."

He looked down at his somewhat ethereal soul form, especially the blurred outline of his lower body. "But... it seems we haven't truly been resurrected."

He looked at Hashirama. "Brother, how are you feeling right now? Is there anything unusual? Like the feeling of being manipulated, or any signs of your consciousness being interfered with?"

"Me? I'm fine."

Hashirama patted his chest, looking relaxed. "Feels great! Much better than when that guy, Orochimaru or whatever, used the Impure World Reincarnation! This place..."

He looked around. Blue sky, green grass, and warm sunshine. "The scenery is nice, but it feels... too quiet, unlike anywhere we've ever been alive. And why did we wake up here? Who did it?"

Tobirama Senju was also caught in the same predicament. Just as he mobilized all his senses and analytical abilities, trying to glean more clues from this seemingly calm environment—

"Big brother! Someone's coming!"

Tobirama suddenly let out a low shout, his pupils sharpening as his gaze shot towards a certain direction in the grassland. His senses detected a massive and aggressive chakra surge rapidly approaching.

What made him frown instantly was not only the power of this chakra, but also its nature—cold, fiery, and full of obsession and fighting spirit.

This was a type of chakra that he was extremely familiar with and particularly hated during his lifetime!

Let's rewind a little bit, to the other side of this newly grown grassland.

"Finally... finally this day has come! Hahahaha!"

A burst of wild, untamed laughter, tinged with ecstasy and a touch of madness, suddenly shattered the tranquility of the world.

The voice belonged to a man clad in antique-style red Sengoku armor, with wild, long hair. His eyes were closed, but he exuded a chilling aura of power and chakra fluctuations unique to the Rinnegan.

Uchiha Madara.

He felt the long-lost, peak power surging within him, the perfect harmony between his soul and body, the uninterrupted peak state that made him burst into wild laughter, the sound echoing far and wide across the grassland.

"Is this the effect of the Samsara Reincarnation Technique? Hahahaha!! My power has completely returned! My body has also recovered to its most perfect state! It seems... those two brats, Obito and Nagato, ultimately didn't disappoint me! The plan was a complete success!!"

Uchiha Madara, as if to embrace the entire world. A wave of ecstasy washed over him, almost immersing him in the immense joy of his resurrection.

However, after a moment, the euphoria subsided, and reason and doubt, like rocks at the bottom of the water, resurfaced in his mind.

Where... is this place?

Madara's smile faded, Rinnegan slowly scanned his surroundings.

Blue sky, white clouds, green grass, sunshine... a scene of calm and vitality, so beautiful it seemed otherworldly, and certainly not any familiar battlefield or stronghold in his memory.

If I were to be successfully resurrected, it should logically be the result of Nagato using the "Rebirth Technique." But where is Nagato? Where is Obito? Why are they nowhere to be seen?

According to his plan, his resurrection should be based on the basic completion of capturing the Tailed Beast and the sufficient power of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. After his resurrection, he will become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi, drag the entire world into an eternal dream, and realize his ideal of permanent peace.

But now... where are the Tailed Beast? Where is the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path? Why aren't Nagato and Obito by their side to perform the final ritual?

The silence here was eerily profound. Apart from myself, there seemed to be only... some blurry... phantom figures, also in a state of stillness?

"Which country is this? Or is it some kind of special barrier space?"

Madara muttered to himself, "If Nagato isn't here... then who resurrected me? And what is their purpose?"

With increasing doubts in his mind, Uchiha Madara decided to stop waiting passively. He closed his eyes, and his immense senses, like invisible radar waves, rapidly spread outwards from himself, searching for Nagato, Obito, or any trace of chakra that might explain the current situation.

However, just as his senses touched a certain area of the grassland—

Uchiha Madara's body suddenly froze! All his movements and thoughts stopped at that moment.

He sensed a chakra fluctuation that was... incredibly familiar.

Although that fluctuation was extremely faint, like a flickering candle in the wind, buried deep beneath the dust of memory, weathered by countless years... Ban will never, ever forget it!

That is...

"Izuna...?!"

That was the eternal pain in his heart, the chakra of his most important younger brother, Uchiha Izuna, which he vowed to make up for with the new world he created using "Infinite Tsukuyomi"!

What's going on?! How did Izuna's chakra end up here?! Didn't he already... already...? And what exactly is this place? Why are my chakra and Izuna's chakra present at the same time?

A chilling premonition instantly gripped Madara's mind. What exactly was going on?

But at this moment, more important than analyzing the current situation is confirming Izuna's condition!

Without hesitation, Madara's figure instantly transformed into a blurry afterimage, rushing towards the location of his brother's chakra that he sensed. In just a few breaths, he reached a relatively flat grassland.

There, a ghostly figure of a young man with black hair, a handsome face, and a mature and resolute air, stood quietly with his eyes closed.

His condition looked terrible; his soul outline was extremely faint and unstable, his lower body was almost completely transparent, and he was so weak that he seemed ready to dissipate into the air at any moment. It was Uchiha Izuna.

"Izuna?! Izuna?! What happened?!"

Madara rushed to his younger brother, calling out anxiously and reaching out to touch him. He carefully shook Izuna's ethereal shoulders, trying to wake him from his eerie slumber.

Just like how Hashirama shook Tobirama.

However, Izuna remained unresponsive, maintaining that unsettling stillness that lingered between existence and non-existence.

We must find a way! We must wake Izuna up immediately! Alarm bells rang in Uchiha Madara's mind.

Looking at his younger brother, whom he thought he would never see again, now appearing before him so vulnerable, he was filled with the ecstatic joy of having lost him again, and an indescribable pity.

He forced himself to calm down, sensing the faint, almost imperceptible, yet strangely familiar Yin Release Chakra within Izuna's soul...

He came up with a solution.

Back then... he transplanted his younger brother's Mangekyō Sharingan and gained the power of the Eternal Mangekyo. However, at the same time, his brother's life force and a portion of his chakra essence remained in his body in some form. Especially after he later obtained the Power of All Creation by transplanting Hashirama Cells, this part of Izuna's chakra imprint was preserved and fused even more perfectly.

Now, perhaps...

Madara slowly extended his right hand, his palm covered with pure chakra imprinted with his own life force and Yin Release power, and gently pressed it against the chest of Izuna's soul form.

Then, he carefully and gently injected a small portion of Yin Release Chakra, which originated from Izuna and had been nurtured by his own power over a long period of time, into Izuna's illusory and unstable soul core through the contact of his palm.