"Do you truly believe this is the right path?"
The figure speaking before Madara was a pale, hazy apparition. He was tall and lean, and the outline of his hairstyle bore some resemblance to Naruto's, but he was definitely not Naruto.
There was also one thing Madara was absolutely certain of... he had never met the person before him at any point in his life!
So... he had only one perfectly natural thought: "Who are you!!!"
The apparition made no attempt to be mysterious and freely introduced himself. "Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Asura!!"
Asura... could he be...?
Madara was widely read and possessed an excellent memory. He had studied the history spanning the hundred years before and after the founding of the Sage of Six Paths' Ninshu!
Otherwise, how would even Obito have known... that the feud between the Senju and the Uchiha began with the struggle between Asura and Indra?
On full alert, Madara demanded in a ringing voice, "You're Asura, the son of the Sage of Six Paths? You've been dead for nearly a thousand years, so why are you appearing before me!!!"
Before him, Asura's apparition looked this way and that, examining his own body.
"To be honest, this is my first time encountering anything like this, too. I reincarnate through karmic affinity, using chakra as my vessel. My 'consciousness' was worn away long ago through repeated cycles of reincarnation, leaving only a tiny trace of 'awareness' to trigger the next Reincarnation. So why is this happening? Why has my consciousness awakened??"
Asura pinched the hair that flickered like a little flame above his forehead between his spectral fingers, pondering the matter with an air that was at once goofy and serious.
"**This guy... what has he been rambling about all this