Chapter 36: All Madmen
On the war-torn battlefield, Stelle, now facing two legendary opponents, was finally beginning to show signs of faltering. A single, momentary opening was all it took for the colossal armored form of Susanoo to swat her from the sky. She crashed into the earth, a plume of dust and debris erupting around her.
Scrambling back to her feet just in time to evade a surge of splintering wood from a Wood Release attack, she raised a hand to her cheek. Her fingers met not the smooth, cold surface of her mask, but the jagged edges of shattered porcelain. It was gone. Fortunately, she had been using her 'Mie' persona.
Even so, the face revealed beneath the fragments sent a ripple of shock through both Uchiha Madara and Tobirama Senju. The mastermind who had single-handedly provoked a war between the Five Great Shinobi Nations, the monster who had fought them to a standstill, was a mere youth. Her face was round, almost cherubic—an image so jarringly juvenile it defied all logic.
Watching the battle from a safe distance, Black Zetsu saw the massive black armor of Stelle's technique dissipate and felt a familiar, sickening lurch in his very being. A terrible premonition began to coil in his gut.
He had told her she was being too arrogant. He had warned her that she couldn't possibly win against both of them working in concert. But she had refused to listen, insisting that killing Hashirama on the spot would create a far more spectacular and lasting effect. Now, she was about to get herself killed.
Uchiha Madara hadn't even been using his full strength before; he had been waiting, biding his time until she revealed herself. Couldn't she have just waited a little longer? Worn Madara down first?
He glanced back at the battlefield. Her defeat was no longer a possibility; it was an inevitability.
A part of him felt a strange sense of relief—he wouldn't have to keep funneling money into her bottomless pit of an appetite anymore. But that thought was immediately crushed by a wave of despair. Where else could he possibly find such a powerful, useful, and utterly insane pawn?
"For your sins, you will repent in the afterlife," Hashirama declared, his hands blurring through another series of seals.
Stelle immediately shot backward, creating distance. The abyssal black flames that had once cloaked her entire body erupted once more, but this time, they did not spread. Instead, they converged, condensing with terrifying pressure into the palm of her hand.
A massive black longsword began to materialize, growing inch by agonizing inch. Unlike the silent, all-consuming nature of her previous attacks, this blade radiated a evident terror the moment it appeared, a dreadful promise of absolute annihilation that seemed to threaten the very fabric of the world.
"Then let's decide this with one final move," she announced, her voice ringing with an unnerving calm.
She produced no more of the strange flames. Her small, human frame looked terrifyingly insignificant when compared to the divine scale of Madara's Susanoo and Hashirama's Wood Golem. Yet, the sheer pressure she emitted was so immense that the expressions of both legendary shinobi turned grim.
"Sage Art Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands!"
"Majestic Attire: Susanoo!"
The three ultimate powers collided, and for a stunning instant, the very air seemed to freeze.
The black giant sword swelled before everyone's eyes, only to suddenly shrink, crushed by the overwhelming force of the armored golem. But in the blink of an eye, the void-like blackness surged back, regaining the upper hand, only to be suppressed once more by the towering, multi-armed Buddha statue.
BOOM!
A continuous, deafening series of explosions tore through the landscape as the energies clashed. The cataclysmic power then soared into the sky, punching a hole straight through the clouds. As if its fury had not yet been fully spent, another thunderous roar erupted from the epicenter.
The ground buckled and surged violently. Fissures, wide enough to swallow men whole, spiderwebbed out from the center of the blast in every direction.
The shinobi caught in the outermost ripples of the shockwave cried out in agony as they were flung through the air like ragdolls. Even at such a great distance, the residual energy was enough to maim and kill.
Finally, when the blinding light and chaotic energy dissipated, the site of the explosion had simply vanished. In its place was a bottomless, abyssal crater, its depths shrouded in darkness.
Anxiety clawed at Tobirama. He tried to use his Flying Thunder God coordinates to locate his brother at the bottom of the pit, but the space there was warped and distorted, twisted by the raw power of the explosion. It was impossible to get a lock. Left with no other choice, he leaped, hurtling himself down into the giant crater.
At the bottom of the pit, Hashirama and Uchiha Madara sat slumped against the scorched earth, gasping for breath. Their bodies were charred black in several places, clear evidence of the grievous injuries they had sustained from that final, desperate move.
Nearby, the Black-Robed Man lay sprawled on the ground, utterly lifeless.
Seeing that still form, Tobirama felt a deep sense of release. The hatred that had been a heavy, suffocating weight on his heart for years seemed to lift in that single moment. A cold, vicious satisfaction took its place.
He would tear this monster into a thousand pieces. Then, he would take those pieces back to his laboratory and place them on his experimental table for a thorough, exhaustive study. He would squeeze every last drop of value from the very marrow of their bones.
The First Great Ninja World War ground to an abrupt halt, paused by the sheer destructive intervention of the Black-Robed Man.
The two titans of Konoha returned home to recover from their severe injuries, and the other Four Great Nations were finally granted a chance to catch their breath.
To be honest, their leaders were wrestling with a storm of conflicting emotions.
Originally, Konoha had been on the verge of annexing them all. They had been prepared to fight to the death, to sacrifice everything to protect their villages.
Then, out of nowhere, a successor to a legendary figure from the Warring States Period had appeared, hell-bent on destroying the world.
And just as suddenly, Hashirama and Uchiha Madara had killed this new threat.
Thanks to those two, the entire world now knew that some shadowy schemer was plotting against the ninja world from behind the scenes.
However, they simply couldn't bring themselves to feel any gratitude.
Their own villages had suffered devastating losses. They had been battered and torn apart, their casualties numbering in the countless thousands. Were they now supposed to thank the very men who had inflicted this damage for ridding the world of a different menace?
Of course, the First Tsuchikage, Ishikawa of the Land of Earth, was an exception. He was genuinely, if secretly, grateful to Hashirama.
Hashirama had never truly fought his forces. Wary of the First Hokage's legendary strength, Ishikawa had ensured all their battles were merely probing skirmishes. Hashirama, for his part, had no real desire for the conflict and had dealt with them casually. Compared to the catastrophic losses of the other three nations, the Land of Earth's were practically negligible.
But since the Konoha army had not officially retreated, the armies of the other hidden villages didn't dare to withdraw either. They harbored deep suspicions about whether the Second Hokage would truly stand down. With Tobirama injured and no new orders issued, who knew if he would simply resume the war once he was fit to fight again?
Black Zetsu was just as miserable as they were.
The teammate he had been supporting, serving like a revered ancestor, had just gotten herself killed. Just like that.
This person was supposed to be his main force for collecting the nine Tailed Beasts. Wasn't this end a bit too reckless? For someone so powerful, didn't she have a single life-saving trump card?
If he hadn't taken advantage of the Konoha ninja's lax guard—their attention focused entirely on Hashirama and the others—to steal the body, Mie would already be on her way to Tobirama's dissection table.
Now, staring at the completely lifeless corpse on the ground of his hideout, he felt a frantic, boiling rage.
'I told you to be more cautious! Do you even know how to read a situation?'he seethed internally.'The Kage of the four major villages were still just testing the waters! If you had just waited for them to fight to the death, to exhaust Uchiha Madara's chakra before you made your move, you would have only had to face Hashirama!''And now look at you! You got yourself killed! You even ruined my grand plan! Give me back my food money!'
Black Zetsu felt the full weight of his wasted efforts crash down on him. He looked at the body with the expression of a man who had raised a prized pig for years, only for it to run headfirst off a cliff.
This person was a true madman. When she went crazy, she didn't even care about her own life.
It reminded him of that Sōjin persona from the Warring States Period—sealed for ten thousand years, only to appear for a single hour and insist on fighting to the death.
They were all absolute madmen.
Wait. Although Mie had died, she seemed to have inadvertently completed her mission. The only reason Hashirama had agreed to start the first war was because he had been deceived by Madara and Tobirama.
Now that Mie was dead, Hashirama would most certainly never agree to start the war again. Conflicts would surely erupt between the three of them.
There was so much room for manipulation here.
Black Zetsu's gaze toward Mie's body shifted. He had originally planned to take her to the Exchange Center to trade for cash, but now… now, it wouldn't be out of the question to find a nice, quiet place to bury her. A small token of appreciation.
What he never could have expected, however, was that after he slipped out to scout for information for half a day and returned to his base… the damn corpse was gone.
And along with it, every single Forbidden Jutsu scroll he had painstakingly collected. All the rare artifacts he was interested in. Everything.
The base was empty. Spotless. It looked as if it had been looted by professionals.
Black Zetsu stood frozen in the cavernous, empty space.
…
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +50,000]
[Ding! Mood value from Black Zetsu +50,000]
...
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