Madara, You've Gotten Dumber

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"Fuck!"

At this moment, Uchiha Madara couldn't help but curse inwardly.

Just hearing about all the sealing techniques applied to him, he could already sense that the situation was far worse than what Kaito had described.

There was practically no way he could escape on his own.

It was obvious—they were preventing him from being revived using Black Zetsu's Edo Tensei technique. So, they preemptively went all out to stop him.

And damn it, they succeeded. It was a flawless plan.

They blocked every possible path.

No loopholes.

"Looks like I'll have to rely on Black Zetsu now," Madara thought.

"Let's hope he's competent enough to find me quickly and help me break free from this control."

"Kaito, you little punk. Just you wait! The day I break free and return to my prime, I'll make you pay! I'll tear you all apart!"

Madara vowed bitterly in his heart. He had never suffered such humiliation before.

"Ahahaha!"

At this moment, Hashirama scratched the back of his head, looking at Madara with an awkward smile.

"Madara! You don't have to be so upset about this!" he tried to console him.

"Look on the bright side!"

"When we defeat Black Zetsu and bring you back to the right path, I'll convince Kaito to lift these restrictions on you."

"In fact, maybe someday, you'll truly come back to life for real!"

"Come on, cheer up!"

To be honest, if he were in Madara's shoes, he'd probably feel just as bad.

But what else could they do?

Madara had chosen the wrong path, after all.

"Hah… Hashirama, you really love talking big, don't you?" Madara snapped back, his tone full of resentment.

"You're not the one being sealed and locked up! Of course, it's easy for you to say, 'Look at the bright side!'"

"Why don't you trade places with me and see how you like it?"

Hashirama awkwardly scratched his head again, smiling sheepishly.

"Well, uh… what choice did we have?"

"You got tricked by that Black Zetsu guy and tried to destroy the world! We had to stop you!"

"Honestly, though, you were kinda dumb back then. How could you fall for Black Zetsu's lies so easily? That's not like you, Madara!"

"Weren't you always the smart one? You used to say I was the dumb one, remember?"

Hashirama's words hit a nerve.

"Excuse me?!" Madara glared at him, eyes wide in disbelief.

"What do you mean I got tricked by Black Zetsu?"

"Do you even know what you're talking about?"

"And who told you I fell out with you because of Black Zetsu's lies?"

"For your information, I created Black Zetsu with my own willpower. Everyone else might betray me, but he never would!"

Despite his confident tone, Madara couldn't help but feel a sliver of doubt.

After all, Black Zetsu's creation had always been a bit… odd.

It was an accident, something even he didn't fully understand.

His naturally suspicious nature had always kept that question buried in the back of his mind.

Today, however, Hashirama had just poked at it.

"No it can't," Madara muttered to himself.

"..."

"Absolutely not!" Hashirama shook his head firmly.

"Creating life isn't that simple."

"If you really created Black Zetsu, then why don't you go ahead and make another one?"

"You can't, can you?"

Madara fell silent.

After a long pause, he finally spoke again.

"It's true I can't… but that doesn't prove Black Zetsu isn't a product of my will!"

"Also, let me correct you—when I left the village, I hadn't even created Black Zetsu yet!"

"I only made him after I awakened the Rinnegan using a special technique. Your claim doesn't add up at all."

"Oh, but it does!"

At this moment, Kaito chimed in with a sly grin.

"Here's the truth, Madara—Black Zetsu isn't your creation at all. He's actually the will of Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, the mother of the Sage of Six Paths."

"She created him right before she was sealed away by the Sage and his brother. Black Zetsu has been working for over a thousand years to revive her."

"Surprise! He's been playing you like a fiddle the whole time."

"Also, you're not his first victim. He even manipulated Indra, one of the Sage's sons—who, by the way, is the ancestor of the Uchiha Clan."

"What…?"

Madara's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Ōtsutsuki Kaguya? The Sage's mother? Where are you even getting this nonsense from?"

"You're just a ten-year-old kid! How could you possibly know the truth about something that happened over a thousand years ago?"

"And don't tell me it's from the clan records. When I left the village, I took most of those valuable texts with me! There's no way any of that would've been recorded in what was left behind."

Kaito just shrugged with a smug smile.

"Doesn't matter how I know. The point is, I do know."

"And by the way, you keep insisting you didn't get tricked by Black Zetsu into turning against Hashirama and leaving the village, but that's just wrong!"

"Don't forget—you read the contents of the Uchiha clan's stone tablet, didn't you? That's where you got the idea about merging the powers of the Uchiha and Senju clans to achieve infinite peace through the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

"What?!"

Madara's pupils contracted sharply.

He stared at Kaito, then turned his gaze to Uchiha Naori, suspicion written all over his face.

"How do you know about that?"

"Wait… Naori, did you awaken the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan?"

"But that's impossible! Your family is gone—only your little sister is still alive, right? And she hasn't awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, let alone lost her eyes!"

"Besides, during our battle, I could see clearly that your Sharingan was just a regular Mangekyō, not an Eternal one."

"The Eternal Mangekyō has a more intricate design, combining two Mangekyō patterns into one."

"Granted, your ocular power is ridiculously strong, even I have to admit that. But still, how could you see the tablet's full text?"

Madara was grasping at straws, trying to make sense of it all.

"Stop guessing."

Naori's calm voice cut through his rambling as she activated her Mangekyō Sharingan.

"You're right—I only have the Mangekyō Sharingan. Not the Eternal."

"And even with my strong ocular power, I can't see the parts of the tablet meant only for the Eternal Mangekyō."

"But here's the thing: the stone tablet has been tampered with."

"What do you mean, 'tampered with'?" Madara demanded, his head spinning from all this new information.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Naori replied coolly.

"Black Zetsu altered the stone tablet a long time ago."

Madara's head throbbed as his doubts grew deeper.

The more he thought about it, the more questions and suspicions filled his mind.

"But how?"

Uchiha Naori replied, looking at Madara with a pitying gaze. "Black Zetsu, as a special entity created by Ōtsutsuki Kaguya—the Sage of Six Paths' mother—using Yin-Yang Release and her own will, naturally wields power beyond the reach of ordinary people."

"And the key to it all is Yin-Yang Release!"

"The Sage of Six Paths' tablet? Yeah, normal people can't modify it and still maintain its original functionality."

"That's probably why you believed so strongly in the contents of the tablet, isn't it?"

"But obviously, Black Zetsu is an exception!"

"With his mastery of Yin-Yang Release and his personal experience from the Sage of Six Paths' era, not to mention his involvement in manipulating Indra, the ancestor of the Uchiha clan, of course, he could alter the tablet's contents!"

"Granted, he didn't change everything. The parts about 'Creation of All Things Technique' are true and remain untouched."

"But the part about achieving eternal peace through the Infinite Tsukuyomi? That's undeniably fake!"

"The real goal wasn't to bring about eternal peace but to harness the power of the Ten-Tails and the Infinite Tsukuyomi to resurrect his sealed mother, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya!"

"You need to understand: the Ten-Tails was originally the Divine Tree, planted by the Ōtsutsuki clan. Kaguya ate the fruit it bore, becoming the progenitor of chakra in the ninja world."

"When the Sage of Six Paths sealed her away, the chakra of the Ten-Tails' fruit was split into two parts."

"One became the Gedo Statue, and the other was divided into the nine tailed beasts."

"To revive Kaguya, they would need the power of the Ten-Tails and a caster with enough strength and potential to act as the vessel."

"Now tell me, who do you think that unfortunate 'caster' is?"

Madara, hearing Naori's mocking tone and words, flushed with anger.

But he couldn't deny that Naori's reasoning made his suspicions about Black Zetsu grow even stronger.

It wasn't just the content; it was the depth of knowledge Naori and his companions seemed to have.

The logic they presented was undeniable.

You had to understand: the history of Indra, the Sage of Six Paths, the Gedo Statue, and the Ten-Tails—this level of detail wasn't something widely documented in the ninja world.

And yet, Naori and his group spoke as though they had lived through it all. It was deeply unsettling.

"Why do you believe the Infinite Tsukuyomi can't truly achieve eternal peace?"

Madara, unable to make sense of it, took a deep breath and searched for flaws in Naori's arguments, questioning him further.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Naori responded, looking at Madara as though he were a complete idiot.

Madara's face flushed even redder. He felt insulted.

Before he could lash out, Hashirama interjected, his face full of disbelief as he looked at Madara. "Isn't it obvious, though? Seriously!"

"The Sage of Six Paths left behind the tablet, right? According to legend, when he founded ninshu and spread chakra to humanity, his ultimate goal was to achieve eternal peace—a world without war, full of harmony and cooperation!"

"If the Infinite Tsukuyomi truly could achieve that goal, why didn't he do it himself? Why leave it on a tablet for future generations to discover?"

"Don't tell me he realized this at the end of his life when it was already too late."

Madara, initially stunned by Hashirama's logic, began to see the inconsistency.

But then Hashirama added, "Why not? That could totally be the case!"

Madara, grasping onto this flimsy justification like a drowning man clutching a straw, nodded vigorously. "Exactly! That's entirely possible!"

Hashirama gave him a look of pure exasperation and disdain. "Madara, you've gotten dumber, haven't you?"

"What? You bastard, Hashirama—"

Madara exploded in anger, his face flushing red as he yelled, "How dare you call me stupid? If anyone here is dumb, it's you!"

Hashirama smirked. "Oh? Care to prove it? Because between the two of us, you're definitely the dumber one."

Madara had always believed that if either of them was foolish, it was Hashirama.

Hashirama was, in Madara's mind, the definition of a dense idiot.

Otherwise, how could he have made so many ridiculous decisions over the years?

"Oh, really?"

Hashirama rolled up his sleeves, clearly ready to argue. "How about the time we skipped stones? I always won that!"

"And let's not forget the time we—"

"Shut up!"

Madara's face darkened as he shot to his feet, rushing over to clamp a hand over Hashirama's mouth before he could reveal any more embarrassing details.

"What's wrong with you? That's not something you should be saying out loud!"

"Just forget it ever happened! Forget it forever!"

At that moment, Madara wished he could travel back in time and strangle his younger self for agreeing to that absurd contest about who could pee farther.

He had never felt so humiliated.

"Mm-mmph—"

Hashirama wriggled free of Madara's grip, looking annoyed. "What's your problem, Madara?"

Madara glared at him. "You tell me! Do you want to embarrass both of us in front of everyone?"

This was exactly why Madara always thought Hashirama was an idiot.

Normal people didn't go around sharing embarrassing stories for everyone to hear.

Did Hashirama have no sense of shame?

Or worse, did he genuinely think those things weren't embarrassing?

The thought left Madara even more speechless.

"Can we please get back to the actual discussion?"

Madara took a deep breath, shaking his head to clear it.

"Fine, fine," Hashirama replied, raising his hands in surrender. "Let's focus on the real issue."

He continued, "Even if we assume the Sage of Six Paths didn't have long to live, couldn't he have passed this method for eternal peace on to his sons or descendants?"

"Why go to the trouble of carving it into a hidden tablet under your clan's shrine, requiring a special set of eyes just to read it?"

"Doesn't that seem contradictory to his supposed goal of making it easy for people to find peace?"

"Tell me I'm wrong."

Madara was left speechless.

Having experienced death once and been broken down multiple times, Madara found himself more willing to listen and think things through.

He had to admit, Hashirama's argument made sense.

For the first time, he began to seriously question the tablet's authenticity.

But he wasn't ready to give up just yet. He clung to one last hope, voicing his final doubt: "Maybe it's because achieving this peace requires the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, or even further evolution to the Rinnegan—"

But he stopped mid-sentence.

Because he realized that argument didn't hold up either.

Indra, the Sage of Six Paths' son and the Uchiha's ancestor, undoubtedly had the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

He might even have had the Rinnegan.

And if he didn't, he could have obtained the Senju's power to awaken it—just as Madara himself had done.

The Sage of Six Paths had two sons. Even if they didn't get along, was it really impossible for him to share such crucial information with them?

Madara had turned against Hashirama, and yet he had still obtained Hashirama's power to awaken the Rinnegan.

So why wouldn't the Sage of Six Paths share this knowledge directly with his own sons instead of hiding it on a tablet?

It didn't add up.

"So… the tablet's contents were fake? Was I manipulated by Black Zetsu all along?"

Madara muttered, his eyes hollow with disbelief.

"Obviously," Kaito interjected, nodding firmly. He looked at Madara with a pitying expression and added, "Of course, not everything on the tablet is false."

"A few parts, like the Infinite Tsukuyomi as a means to eternal peace? Those are lies!"

"Nine truths and one lie—that's how Black Zetsu made you believe it without question."

"You were completely deceived and used by him!"

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