After exposing the White Zetsu hiding among the army, Yagami ordered the unit to disperse.
Then, he rose into the sky and flew straight out of Konoha's camp.
From the memories of the White Zetsu clone, he had seen Uchiha Madara. More importantly, Madara's hiding place was not far from here.
Since Uchiha Madara had already taken notice of him, even going so far as to send White Zetsu to monitor him, Yagami naturally planned to pay him a visit.
The true mastermind hiding behind the scenes of the shinobi world.
The wind roared past Yagami's ears.
High above the ground, he flew forward at an incredible speed.
In only a few minutes, he arrived at the location hidden within White Zetsu's memories.
Kagura's Mind Eye!
Yagami hovered a hundred meters in the air, closed his eyes, and released his perception downward.
In his consciousness, the layers of earth seemed to peel away one after another.
His senses swept deep underground.
Soon, an enormous hollow cavern appeared within his perception, vast enough to resemble an underground palace.
However, after scanning the entire place from the inside out, Yagami did not sense a single presence.
"…Not here?"
"Did he go out?"
Yagami frowned slightly, then expanded Kagura's Mind Eye outward with himself at the center.
His perception continued to spread, reaching its limit at over a hundred kilometers.
Even then, he found no trace of Uchiha Madara.
Not even Black Zetsu or White Zetsu.
"Did he already leave this place?"
Yagami muttered to himself, his expression thoughtful.
From the memories of that White Zetsu clone, he had clearly seen that Uchiha Madara was still here a week ago.
And with Madara's old, decayed body, it should have been impossible for him to move around casually.
If he was no longer here now, then there was only one explanation.
He had left early.
"Lucky old bastard."
Yagami sighed with some regret.
Then, he turned around and flew back toward Konoha's position.
He had originally wanted to meet the legendary ghost of the Uchiha clan for himself.
If possible, he would not have minded sending Madara off personally.
Unfortunately, luck had not been on his side.
His trip had ended in nothing.
The Land of Water.
Kirigakure.
Inside a dark, deep, damp cave.
Uchiha Madara, the very person Yagami was thinking of, was currently sitting within that cave.
Because his power had been exhausted, he had also summoned the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path here.
At this moment, Madara sat on a stone seat, absorbing power from the Demonic Statue in order to maintain his decayed body.
"I…"
"I truly have grown old."
Opening his eyes, Madara glanced at his withered arm and let out a faint sigh.
Time spared no one.
Whenever he remembered the days when he had fought Hashirama across the battlefield, that overwhelming power, that grandeur, that era that belonged to them…
Even Madara could not help feeling a trace of nostalgia.
But nostalgia was only nostalgia.
His dream had not ended yet.
So he could not stop here.
"Madara-sama! This is bad! Really bad!"
Just as Madara was silently lamenting the passage of time, White Zetsu's strange and panicked voice echoed from outside the cave.
A moment later, White Zetsu jumped into the cave.
He moved restlessly, almost like a monkey.
"White Zetsu."
Black Zetsu slowly emerged from Madara's shadow, his tone low.
"Can you not make such a fuss every time you speak?"
White Zetsu was not exactly useless.
But his behavior was always frivolous.
From time to time, he would do something so absurd that even Black Zetsu was left speechless.
Madara slowly raised his eyes.
"Speak. What happened?"
"Has Sunagakure already been defeated?"
Hearing the faint urgency in White Zetsu's voice, Madara's expression sharpened slightly.
White Zetsu quickly shook his head.
"No, no. It's not about Sunagakure."
"It's my clones!"
"Your clones?"
Black Zetsu narrowed his eyes.
"What happened to them?"
White Zetsu looked unusually serious.
"Madara-sama, didn't you tell me to send more people to watch Yagami?"
"So I sent more than a dozen clones to infiltrate Konoha's army."
"But just now, my connection to all of them vanished at the same time."
White Zetsu paused.
"They were killed. Every single one of them."
For once, White Zetsu's expression lost its usual careless look.
No one understood his clones' ability to hide better than he did.
If the connection to all of them had disappeared at once, then there was only one possibility.
They had all been found and killed.
Not one had escaped.
"All of them?"
Black Zetsu's voice sank.
"You didn't let them get dragged into the battlefield and wiped out by some large-scale ninjutsu, did you?"
Although the White Zetsu clones were not especially strong, their concealment ability was among the best in the shinobi world.
For all of them to vanish at once, Black Zetsu's first thought was that White Zetsu had foolishly let them wander too close to the main battlefield and get caught in someone's attack.
Madara turned his gaze toward White Zetsu.
"Is that what happened?"
"Of course not, Madara-sama!"
White Zetsu waved his hands repeatedly.
"Don't listen to Black Zetsu. I may be a little careless sometimes, but I'm not stupid enough to send my clones straight into the most dangerous part of the battlefield."
After saying that, White Zetsu glanced at Black Zetsu, clearly dissatisfied.
Black Zetsu ignored him.
Madara fell silent for a moment.
"Then they were discovered?"
His voice became colder.
"Did they expose us?"
The cave fell quiet.
Madara had been planning for far too long.
If everything was exposed because of a mistake from White Zetsu, then the situation would become troublesome.
After all, he no longer had much time left to rebuild a new plan.
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