Madara's bizarre assortment of skills

Yanbai built the smokeless stove and cooked delicious food for himself.

If he stayed at the clan grounds, everything he ate would be supplied by the clan.

Besides, those people had all sorts of strange rules. He couldn't eat this, and he couldn't eat that.

Following this world's traditions and the principle of conserving firewood, they mostly prepared cold food, which Yanbai didn't like either.

The clan grounds had people assigned to keep strict control over the kitchens. They feared that spies or others might gain control of the food supply and endanger everyone in the clan.

Yanbai couldn't get anywhere near the kitchens. If he wanted to cook for himself, he had to sneak out in the dead of night, dig his own fire pit, and cook there.

That was why Yanbai preferred cooking outdoors, where he could eat whatever he wanted.

Yanbai trained his body away from prying eyes and already needed to replenish his energy promptly. His goal was to enjoy his own meals.

Improving Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha's diet was merely a side benefit...

While Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha weren't paying attention, Yanbai had just slain a wild boar he couldn't communicate with. He swiftly used ninjutsu to butcher and clean it, then cut it into thin slices and grilled them.

A sprinkle of spices, a sprinkle of salt.

The nearby wild beasts all let out hungry roars.

Grilled cuts of meat, fragrant with sizzling fat, were placed on washed, broad leaves and set on a boulder.

The meat had been grilled to a rich color and topped with unidentified wild vegetables in red, white, and green, along with plump mushrooms.

Beside the grilled meat lay fish that had been wrapped in clean leaves, sealed in clay, and roasted.

There were also cold wild vegetable salads, with ripe wild peaches cut into chunks and neatly arranged beside them.

Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju stared blankly at the feast before them.

Yanbai ignored them entirely. He reached out and cracked open the hardened clay covering the roasted fish, revealing its tender white flesh.

Using washed leaves, Yanbai portioned out some meat and set it before Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. Then he began eating his own share.

Seeing Yanbai start eating, Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha stopped standing on ceremony.

At first, Hashirama Senju had chatted freely with Madara Uchiha during their meals, only to discover that Yanbai ate far too quickly.

Now, whatever they wanted to say had to wait until they finished eating.

Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha had both recently made tremendous improvements in their physical fitness, and Yanbai's delicious food had played a part in that.

After the meal, while Yanbai cleaned up, Hashirama Senju pulled Madara Uchiha aside to talk.

"What exactly should we do to change things? We still need to draw up a plan for the future." Hashirama Senju sighed.

"First, we need to stand firm in our convictions, and we need to get stronger," Madara Uchiha said seriously. "No matter how much the weak protest, it's treated as nothing but a dog's barking."

"You're right. If we master all kinds of ninjutsu and become powerful, the adults won't ignore our opinions anymore." Hashirama Senju wholeheartedly agreed.

"We need to address our weaknesses..." Madara Uchiha said lightly, his gaze involuntarily drifting toward Yanbai, who had already buried the traces of their cooking a short distance away.

Unlike in his original fate, whenever Madara Uchiha saw Yanbai, he no longer dared claim he had no weaknesses.

Although Yanbai was quiet, his behavior was exactly as Hashirama Senju had described. Wherever Hashirama Senju went, Yanbai followed-even when he went to pee...

It left Madara Uchiha utterly speechless.

Madara Uchiha feared that if he claimed he had no weaknesses, that nasty little brother Yanbai would start following him the way he followed his own older brother, Hashirama Senju. Then he would really be done for!

Hearing Hashirama Senju try to stop Yanbai from watching him by saying things like an idiot-"Don't look!" "Don't listen!" "Don't come any closer!"-made Madara Uchiha's skin crawl.

Of course, in Madara Uchiha's eyes, aside from his perverse fixation on Hashirama Senju, Yanbai was outstanding in every other respect.

Whenever they parted, Yanbai would quietly heal both Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha, letting them return home in the best possible condition.

Deep down, Madara Uchiha was quite grateful to Yanbai.

Madara Uchiha had no idea that every time Yanbai finished touching him, Yanbai would inwardly curse him as trash.

For some reason, despite touching Madara Uchiha many times already, Yanbai had never once copied the Uchiha bloodline, let alone Indra's chakra.

What Yanbai found most unbearable was that Madara Uchiha possessed skills based on every bizarre concept imaginable. Once, he had even copied a skill called "Brother-Complex Authority."

"Brother-Complex Authority": by continuously chanting "My foolish little brother," the user had a fifty percent chance of sending the younger brother being addressed into a frenzy, while boosting all of that brother's attributes by fifty percent.

That skill was worthless to Yanbai.

He didn't have a younger brother.

There were plenty of similar skills, and Yanbai was beginning to question his life.

Yanbai suspected that Indra's chakra inside Madara Uchiha had sensed the Asura chakra he had copied and gone into hiding.

Thus, Yanbai could only continue quietly observing Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha from a distance, sparing no effort to keep their fathers from discovering their friendship.

Because Yanbai was there, Tobirama Senju hadn't followed Hashirama Senju, and naturally hadn't discovered Madara Uchiha either.

However...

Just because Tobirama Senju hadn't noticed didn't mean Madara Uchiha's younger brother, Izuna, hadn't noticed something amiss.

Madara Uchiha left home frequently and met Hashirama Senju more and more often, and their bond grew ever closer.

At last, the time had come for their relationship to fall apart.

Yet even now, Yanbai still hadn't managed to get what he wanted by touching Madara Uchiha.

Yanbai decided to do everything he could to delay the rupture between these two close friends.

Spring arrived.

The cherry blossoms had yet to bloom, but the cold had already faded.

The afternoon sunlight shone gently over the forest.

Madara Uchiha stood beneath a lush cherry tree, his arms crossed and his expression stern.

It was the season when the cherry blossoms were ready to open, and a few early blooms had already appeared on the branches.

Thousand-leaf daylilies grew everywhere around him.

Whatever he was thinking, Madara Uchiha's stern expression made him look angry.

Hashirama Senju once again approached from a distance with Yanbai in tow.

The moment he saw Madara Uchiha, Hashirama Senju excitedly began introducing his supposedly formidable taijutsu, "Super Fire Release Genjutsu Slash Giant Shuriken Two-Stage Drop Technique," and invited Madara Uchiha to practice it with him.

Hearing such a lame ninjutsu name, Madara Uchiha immediately looked bored and, of course, refused.

Seeing that Hashirama Senju was about to keep babbling, Madara Uchiha suddenly had an idea and proposed a race straight up the cliff.

The result was that Hashirama Senju pulled a flashy stunt and got a head start up the cliff.

Madara Uchiha was ultimately a step too slow and lost.

The two sat on the flat ground at the top of the cliff, looking down.

Panting, Hashirama Senju scratched his head. "Ah... I got so carried away that I left Yanbai down there. He won't be angry, will he?"