The two brothers, Uchiha Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi, were currently executing a massive genjutsu to pirate the Rinnegan user experience straight from the mind of their legendary ancestor, Uchiha Madara.
Sasuke was even considerate enough to carefully record the specific mechanics behind Madara's unique Rinnegan ability, Limbo.
That way, once this entire operation wrapped up, he could go back and deliver a full debriefing to the leader of the Akatsuki.
After all, the Akatsuki had helped him out immensely.
He fully intended to repay that kindness with intel.
Now, don't look at how easily Sasuke and Itachi were puppeteering Madara with genjutsu right now and assume this was just a simple case of a crippled tiger getting bullied by dogs.
That was only a tiny fraction of the reason.
Raw power determined whether Madara could forcefully break out of a genjutsu, but whether he could detect the genjutsu in the first place relied on entirely different mechanics.
If the entire point of a genjutsu was to deceive the senses, then much like the Transformation Jutsu, it absolutely could not allow the victim to spot any glaring inconsistencies.
The main reason the Transformation Jutsu frequently failed in the field was that the user usually impersonated someone close to the target.
If the target knew the real person intimately, even a tiny micro-expression or slightly wrong posture could completely blow the disguise.
Genjutsu operated on the exact same logic.
If they wanted to flawlessly deceive Madara, they needed an exhaustive understanding of every single detail of the resurrection process.
If Madara suddenly revived inside the illusion and magically had his original Rinnegan already sitting in his eye sockets, his paranoia would spike instantly.
To combat that, they had to grant Madara a certain degree of "admin authority" inside the genjutsu.
They had to give him just enough mental freedom to subconsciously construct parts of the illusion himself.
Only by doing that could Madara seamlessly trigger and use the Rinnegan inside the dream state.
They couldn't give him too much control, or he'd shatter the illusion.
But they couldn't give him too little, either.
Only with that kind of terrifyingly precise control could they force Uchiha Madara to realize the truth as late as humanly possible.
Because they gave Madara limited authority over his Rinnegan, Sasuke and Itachi had to meticulously construct literally everything else from scratch—including the roster of opponents explicitly prepared for Madara to fight.
Whether it was the Tailed Beasts, the jinchūriki, or Senju Hashirama himself, they had to mimic reality as closely as possible, using the massive vault of intel provided entirely by Amegakure.
...
Meanwhile, outside Amegakure.
At the secluded Naruto-Sasuke cabin.
After furiously scrubbing his hands in the bathroom, the masked man stalked back into the room.
If he couldn't get the eyes, he was going to make damn sure he didn't leave empty-handed!
He would just grab Uzumaki Naruto, the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki, as a consolation prize.
Sasuke had conveniently locked Naruto under a genjutsu for him anyway.
If he didn't swipe the kid right now, it would be a total waste.
"Hm?!"
The masked man suddenly sensed something fundamentally wrong.
'Why the hell is there another chakra signature inside this house?'
'Could it be...'
Without wasting a single second, the masked man phased straight into the other bedroom.
Judging by the childish sign hanging on the door, this had originally been Naruto's room.
But when the masked man kicked the door open and peered inside, Sasuke was lying sideways on the bed, fast asleep.
'So that's how it is,' the masked man sneered inwardly.
He had nearly been completely duped.
It wasn't that Sasuke somehow predicted his arrival, deliberately abandoned Naruto as bait, and then bailed.
No, Sasuke and Naruto had just completely swapped bedrooms as a basic precaution.
That was all.
As for why they'd done that? It was probably because Sasuke was terrified some random creep might sneak in and take advantage of Naruto's purity while the idiot was knocked out by the genjutsu.
Yeah, that had to be it.
He had just been way too nervous earlier.
On top of that, the second he realized he grabbed the wrong thing while trying to gouge out those eyeballs, his brain had short-circuited, leaving him no time to think logically.
The masked man mentally comforted himself, shaking off the trauma as he slowly approached "Sasuke," who was currently lying motionless on the bed.
'This time, you aren't escaping!'
Right now, the masked man felt a massive surge of excitement—a genuine thrill.
The hand he slowly reached out toward Sasuke felt exactly like the hand he had once reached out toward Namikaze Minato all those years ago!
He honestly even wanted to dramaticize the moment and quote his old line: "The flash that falls into darkness—you have nowhere left to run."
Pff.
The masked man's expression completely froze behind his mask.
Again.
Why?
Why the hell was it still... shit!
Wait!
The masked man suddenly felt a blinding, searing pain rip through his fingers.
He frantically yanked his hand back.
Four fingers on his right hand had been cleanly severed, the stumps completely charred and smoking.
The masked man violently kicked "Sasuke" across the room.
With a poof, the illusion dropped.
Just like the first time, it was still Naruto, and he was still disguised upside down.
But unlike the first decoy, when the masked man stared into the abyss this time, he noticed a deeply terrifying, highly concentrated chakra formula etched right onto Naruto's body!
That's right.
The first Naruto he grabbed hadn't actually been Naruto, nor had it been a Shadow Clone.
It was just a highly realistic paper decoy crafted by Konan using the Paper Person of God Technique.
Given how obsessively Sasuke cared about Naruto, how the hell could he possibly allow the real Naruto to transform into bait?
And more importantly, how could he possibly leave Naruto totally defenseless without slapping some lethal trap jutsu on him?
The second body was the genuine Uzumaki Naruto.
Back in the day, Orochimaru had planted a curse mark right on Jiraiya.
Just to guarantee Jiraiya wouldn't be compelled by the curse to use his asshole, Orochimaru had sadistically sealed his ass entirely and rigged a Wind Release trap on it.
That specific defense mechanism was incredibly effective.
In order to explicitly guard against Uchiha Madara—regardless of which of the two "Uchiha Madaras" came knocking.
In order to completely prevent them from stealing Naruto's purity, or doing anything else violating to him, Sasuke swallowed his pride, went straight to his teacher Orochimaru, and learned the technique.
Just exactly like Orochimaru had done to Jiraiya, Sasuke used the asshole curse mark to firmly slam Naruto's ass shut.
As for the defense... Sasuke strictly specialized in Lightning Release and Fire Release.
He didn't possess an ounce of Wind-nature chakra, so he couldn't leave behind a clean, surgical wind blade like Orochimaru.
Instead, he settled for the next best, highly aggressive option: he shoved a tiny lightning-fire sword trap straight into Naruto's system!
In plain terms, it was a hyper-compressed sword physically formed through a compound Lightning and Fire Release ninjutsu, molded perfectly through nature transformation.
The exact second an intruder made contact, the trap violently triggered.
The lightning-fire sword instantly unleashed a storm of microscopic lightning blades—as razor-sharp as wind blades—to shred the target, all while radiating blistering, fiery sword energy.
Of course, this trap was terrifyingly destructive.
It would mutilate the enemy dick, but the resulting blast radius would also cause massive internal trauma to Naruto.
To guarantee Naruto's survival, Sasuke meticulously throttled the jutsu's raw power down so Naruto wouldn't be permanently crippled by the blast.
At the very least, with Naruto's freakish Uzumaki-Kurama recovery factor, he'd heal up perfectly fine in a short window of time.
Even heavily nerfed, the trap still cleanly sheared off four of the masked man's fingers in a single fraction of a second.
And because the fiery wound was instantly carbonized, even relying on the White Zetsu arm's freakish cellular regeneration, the masked man couldn't immediately regrow the lost digits.
"Damn it! This time, you had better actually be the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki!" The masked man hissed through his teeth.
He grabbed the unconscious Naruto with his single intact hand and violently hauled the kid toward himself.
After suffering so many brutal, humiliating losses tonight, he absolutely had to walk away with a win.
No matter what it took, he had to drag Naruto out of here!
"Hey, Naruto! Sasuke! You guys home? I came over to help tidy the place up!"
Their overly enthusiastic, uninvited neighbor, Senju Hashirama, had just returned.
He pushed the front door wide open and casually strolled straight inside.
The exact millisecond Hashirama's sensors picked up an unknown hostile chakra signature inside the house, he instantly went on high alert and blurred straight toward the bedroom where the masked man was standing.
"Who are you?" Hashirama demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
"I..."
Facing down the terrifying pressure of the God of Shinobi, the masked man froze.
His brain short-circuited.
He could put on airs and play the untouchable badass in front of basically anyone else.
But standing right in front of Senju Hashirama?
If he claimed to be Uchiha Madara, wouldn't the guy instantly see through the bullshit and expose him on the spot?!
"My name is Tobi! I am just a super shy upperclassman who secretly admires underclassman Uzumaki Naruto!"
"I-I'm so sorry, Lord First! I really just couldn't suppress these intense feelings of pure admiration bubbling in my heart anymore! I know Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun are a pair, but I... but I... hiks..."
In a moment of pure, desperate panic, the masked man's voice suddenly cracked, entirely shifting its pitch as he began dramatically sobbing in a high-pitched, overly delicate, feminine tone.
Senju Hashirama stopped dead in his tracks, utterly frozen.
His sharp gaze drifted slightly downward, noticing that Naruto's pajama waistband seemed more than a little loose... as if just a second ago...