When Yanbai asked, "Are you a revenant now?"
Madara Uchiha's rambling voice abruptly fell silent.
An eerie silence settled over them.
It convinced Yanbai that something had happened without his knowledge.
The atmosphere between them suddenly grew suffocatingly quiet.
Yanbai could hear the distant cicadas he had created in the dream.
A short while later.
Madara Uchiha was the first to break the silence.
"Zetsu helped me."
Those unhurried words brought Yanbai's attention back to the present.
By the time Yanbai came back to his senses.
Madara Uchiha's voice had already drowned out the cicadas.
"I don't want to make up a story to deceive you, but I don't want to tell you the details either," Madara Uchiha said calmly.
Yanbai suddenly understood. Perhaps Zetsu had tempted Madara Uchiha with something again.
Yanbai was puzzled. What could possibly entice the Madara Uchiha standing before him now?
Yanbai looked at Madara Uchiha in surprise.
Then he heard Madara Uchiha say, "It's not actually anything particularly terrible. You can think of it as something I find embarrassing, so I don't want to talk about it right now. You only need to know that I fulfilled the 'agreement.' It's really not important. You don't need to dwell on it."
Madara Uchiha's strange tone and behavior made Yanbai a little uncomfortable.
For a moment, the part of Yanbai's mind that governed his thoughts became exceptionally clear.
The pieces began connecting in Yanbai's mind of their own accord.
Old Grandmother had previously made an agreement with Madara Uchiha. For Naruto Uzumaki, the next reincarnation of Asura Chakra, and Sasuke Uchiha, the next reincarnation of Indra's Chakra, to be born without incident, both Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha had to die.
Hashirama Senju had indeed died.
But Madara Uchiha had found himself in the awkward position