Hashirama Senju had been summoned by Uchiha Mu after the war began, and he had watched the entire war in the shinobi world, the conflicts between the villages, and the tragedies of the small countries.
By now, however carefree he might have been, he realized that his past self had been wrong-terribly wrong. He had watched a tailed beast's Tailed Beast Bomb kill scores of Konoha ninjas in a single blast, watched the other villages' elites slaughter Konoha's ordinary ninjas, and watched ninjas attack ordinary people.
His heart was calm, a manifestation of his anger. He wanted to intervene in the war and fulfill the promise he had once made to Madara. Whether they were friends or brothers, he would never forgive anyone who dared attack Konoha.
But the chakra inside this body created by Impure World Reincarnation warned him that the moment he became involved in the war, he would return straight to the Underworld. That would not do. He could not go back yet. He needed to see where the war was heading and how many casualties Konoha suffered.
He also wanted to know whether everything he had done before had meant anything. He might not have been especially clever, but no one could laugh something like this off unless so much time had passed that there was no longer any way to stop it, as had been the case during the Fourth Shinobi World War in the original story.
This time, he wanted to speak with Uchiha Mu face-to-face-not about Konoha, but about the causes of war.
When he arrived in the Hundred-Clan Shinobi Nation, people hurried along the streets. Not one of them worried about the war, and their faces brimmed with happy smiles. That could not be faked.
Without dwelling on it, Hashirama went straight