Hahaha! How interesting!!
Hashirama!!!
Is this the Konoha you built?!
Is this the Konoha you'd rather kill me than fail to protect?
It's filled with so much filth and corruption.
How ugly.
So this is the Will of Fire in Konoha—turning on your fellow villagers to fight for the Hokage's seat? Burning others to light your own way.
For decades, Madara had lived alone underground. Every day, his only amusement was sending White Zetsu out to gather information and hear the latest juicy gossip from the Shinobi World.
The last time he'd laughed like this was when Tobirama died in Kumogakure.
This time, he was laughing at how ridiculous Hashirama's ideals were.
What was even funnier was that all the infighting involved Tobirama's faction. Well, Madara figured the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. Tobirama had driven him out, after all.
"Do it. Why wouldn't we?"
"Go along with him."
Madara gave the order.
What an eventful day. The little fool who was supposed to carry out the Eye of the Moon Plan would be brought down here soon.
And now there was juicy gossip about Konoha's upper ranks.
He didn't know which to watch first.
He'd better attend to the Eye of the Moon Plan first.
Hashirama! Can you see? Only my Eye of the Moon Plan can bring peace to the Shinobi World.
Your ideals? They won't do.
"Lord Madara, we have a problem!!"
The White Zetsu channel was unusually lively today. Madara was puzzled as he connected to the White Zetsu who was speaking.
From the White Zetsu's point of view, Obito and Kakashi were unconscious on the ground, while Rin had been abducted just as planned and dumped at the cave where Madara lived.
Madara: "?!"
Then the two of them weren't coming?
Who was he supposed to put on this little show for?
Obito's desperate desire to save Rin made his hand twitch slightly.
That was all. It only twitched a little.
The colorless, odorless drug Tsunade had made could knock out not just people but even an elephant, according to her.
Kakashi was sleeping like a dead Pakkun beside him. No one would even know if someone sold him off.
Meanwhile, Zhengyi was ready to start his life over.
What was his teacher doing?!
Orochimaru took Minato from Zhengyi and threw him toward the White Zetsu Rock Ninja.
On Madara's orders, the White Zetsu Rock Ninja agreed to cooperate with Orochimaru.
Orochimaru leaned close to the White Zetsu's ear. "Do this and this... then do that and that..."
"Huh." The White Zetsu Rock Ninja looked at Orochimaru in surprise. Wow, you people from Konoha really knew how to have fun. Come to think of it, Lord Madara was also from Konoha.
Were all you Konoha people geniuses?
The next second, Zhengyi wondered if he'd gone blind. The Iwagakure jonin who'd just been talking to his teacher had one hand around Orochimaru's neck and the other around Minato's, lifting them both into the air.
Minato was unconscious, so his head lolled to one side. Orochimaru wore an expressionless face as he let himself be taken hostage.
Two Kage Level fighters had just been picked up by some nobody who didn't even have a name in the story?
Had his teacher been drugged too? There was no other way to explain this.
This was Orochimaru, one of the major villains of early Naruto!
"Teacher!" Zhengyi didn't have time to think. He pulled a Kunai from his ninja pouch and rushed to save Orochimaru.
Orochimaru was touched that his student's first instinct was to save him, but he didn't need rescuing.
"Go back and get the Third to send help!" Orochimaru said.
"Teacher, I..."
"Go!!"
Zhengyi's brain was about to fry, and he still couldn't make sense of Orochimaru's thought process.
But then he realized something.
If Minato was unconscious and had been captured, then who was going to save Kakashi and Rin?
By now, Obito should have had his face smashed against a rock.
So he headed first to the place where Kakashi and the others were carrying out their mission.
His teacher was a Kage Level fighter, after all. At this point in time, Orochimaru was at the pinnacle of the Shinobi World's combat strength.
He wouldn't die.
You found 1 wild Obito Uchiha by the roadside.
You found 1 wild Kakashi Hatake by the roadside.
You found 1 wild Rin Nohara in a cave.
Zhengyi: "..."
Dispel!
Dispel!
He tried to force chakra through his body.
He suspected he'd been caught in a genjutsu.
Otherwise, how could his teacher Orochimaru have been captured, while he'd somehow ended up picking up Team 7?
Was it because of the Green Banana? Were those two really that eager to eat?!
"Dispel." Seeing that Rin had been caught in a genjutsu, Zhengyi quickly released her from it.
"Zhengyi?" The moment Rin regained consciousness, tears suddenly began streaming down her face. The relief of seeing someone she knew after surviving a brush with death overwhelmed her. She'd thought she was going to die.
Zhengyi had arrived just in time.
If Zhengyi hadn't been carrying one person in each hand, he really would have gone over to hug and comfort her. This was his Rin, after all.
The angel who'd given him half her lunch when he hadn't had enough to eat at the Ninja Academy!
Angel.
Damn it!
Was this your doing?!
Madara!!
Kakashi! Obito! Stop me, or I'm really afraid I'll go kill Madara.
Damn it!
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
"Rin, turn your head away."
"Oh, okay."
As soon as Rin turned her head, Zhengyi tossed Kakashi and Obito aside, then... undid his pants and took a piss right into the cave.
At the sound behind her, Rin thought, "?"
At the sound above him, Madara thought, "?"
He swore that if Obito could still move after being brainwashed, he'd go up there and hang that bastard upside down and beat him to death.
What kind of person did that?
Ptooey.
"This is such a hassle." Madara propped his face on one hand and thought through his options. He'd had the same habit for decades: whenever he had to think, he did this.
He'd accounted for everything.
Everything except Konoha's infighting dragging his plan into it.
Who could have known that Orochimaru and Zhengyi would be so underhanded as to use poison?
"Uh, Lord Madara, why don't you just disguise yourself as a Rock Ninja and go up there to beat them all up?" suggested a White Zetsu with a particularly lively personality.
Madara shot him a sidelong glance. He was as stupid as Hashirama.
If Obito didn't get hurt, wouldn't he keep clamoring to go back? What reason would Madara have to stop him then?
If Obito didn't go through a heart-wrenching farewell, how could he keep yearning to return while living underground with Madara? And without all that hope, how could he come close to breaking down when he saw the person he loved die right before his eyes?
The ideal was beautiful, but reality was harsh.
Obito still hadn't woken up.
After thinking for two or three seconds, Madara came up with another idea.
Before you continue