Taking Konoha's covert launch of a tailed beast collection project two years ago as an opportunity, the aged Madara, hidden behind the scenes, had indirectly established contact with Director Yamada through Black Zetsu.
Over the past two years, the two sides had not maintained a particularly close partnership. But in order to cast a long line for a big fish, the aged Madara had still provided Soji with plenty of covert assistance through his aloe-like clone on many matters involving Konoha's internal factional struggles, treating it as bait for chumming the waters...
It was not until the Spirit Body Transfer Technique had been proven viable on Uchiha Fugaku that Konoha's Dancing King raised his estimation of Yamada Soji to another level!
Although Director Yamada had yet to think of a good way to plant an informant within the two-man startup company that was the aged Madara and Black Zetsu... simply judging by how often Black Zetsu had been active around him lately, it was not difficult to guess at Uchiha Madara's intense interest in Spirit Body Transfer.
—From wanting nothing to wanting something.
That shift in the aged Madara's attitude gave Director Yamada his first genuine means of counterbalancing Konoha's Dancing King. At the same time, it fed a crucial variable, taking things from zero to one, into his vast logical computation system.
From then on, Uchiha Madara's decisions changed from "unexpected developments," which could only be passively obtained through intelligence gathering, into "exactly as expected," which Soji could determine beforehand through logical deduction.
This meant that Director Yamada's unmatched ability to scheme against others using his foreknowledge had finally found a place to shine.
It also explained the key reason Soji had been certain, before the situation in Red Pine Ridge underwent a fundamental shift, that the aged Madara