Chapter 463: The Righteous Infinite Tsukuyomi
While giving advice to the original Akatsuki members, Madara's initial intention was naturally simple: use them against Obito, obtain the Hashirama cells for himself, and restore his power.
But in order to make his arguments sound more righteous and friendly, Madara had no choice but to think from the perspective of justice and goodwill.
And once he started doing that, he inevitably remembered something Hashirama had once told him.
There was no need to personally control and accomplish everything alone. One could cultivate people willing to stand behind them.
Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Sasuke, and even Indra himself had all originally believed that "the strong are always lonely."
The Sage of Six Paths had once said that Indra possessed power far beyond that of his younger brother Asura from the very beginning, which made him unsociable.
As for Asura, because his own strength was insufficient, he chose to unite everyone's power instead. He chose cooperation.
And from this alone, it was obvious that the Sage of Six Paths really had something wrong with his head.
He had basically done the equivalent of replacing the eldest with the youngest, just like Emperor Taizong of Tang Li Shimin and Li Chengqian.
At least Li Shimin never truly carried it out. He only showed signs of intending to do so.
But the Sage of Six Paths genuinely believed his actions were correct.
Why did Indra not have the villagers work alongside him?
For example, imagine the Sage of Six Paths instructing Indra and Asura to help villagers dig wells, destroy the remnants of the Divine Tree, and stop the villagers from drinking the harmful sap produced by the tree.
Indra was extremely powerful. He destroyed the Divine Tree remnants directly, finished digging the well, and brought up water immediately.
So why should he force the villagers to waste their own labor helping him dig the well?
Could they not use the time and energy saved to farm instead?
Was it really just for the sake of "unity", the philosophy preached by the Sage of Six Paths? Was it all just empty performance?
And what about Asura?
He dug wells together with the villagers, and it took an entire year before they succeeded.
It was not that he genuinely wanted the villagers to work together with him.
He simply had no choice.
After all, it took a whole year.
The villagers under his care drank the harmful Divine Tree sap for another entire year before they finally got clean water from the well.
If Asura were truly kind-hearted, then he would not have allowed the villagers to suffer for the sake of some hollow ideal of unity.
So in the end, Asura simply lacked ability and therefore had to rely on cooperation.
The problem became obvious from this.
Then came the results.
The villagers on Asura's side united together and lived happy lives.
The villagers on Indra's side fought over water resources, slaughtered one another, and eventually perished.
And the conclusion reached by the Sage of Six Paths was: "Asura strong strong! Indra weak weak!"
Seriously, why the hell?
The Sage of Six Paths did not even understand the most basic concept of controlling variables, yet he still dared to conduct this kind of comparison?
Why could it not simply be that the villagers managed by Indra were originally just the ancestors of those naturally evil Konoha villagers?
This was completely a case of drawing the target after shooting the arrow.
Then that generation ended.
And the era of Senju Hashirama arrived.
Despite being the overwhelmingly powerful one and the reincarnation of Asura, Senju Hashirama still loved unity and cooperation.
That alone slapped the Sage of Six Paths directly across the face.
Still, it had to be said that weakness really did encourage people to unite.
It was a sufficient but unnecessary condition.
That was exactly how Madara felt now.
For the first time, he experienced something different from the feeling of treating Obito as nothing more than a tool.
In truth, Kishimoto was very crafty.
Before Shiromo appeared, the entire ninja world never truly had any real ideological conflicts or clashes of beliefs.
Or rather, every apparent "ideological conflict" eventually received a black-and-white answer unrelated to the issue itself.
Take the Infinite Tsukuyomi, for example. At first glance, it appeared to be a choice between "harsh reality" and "a perfect dream."
But in truth, there was never any choice at all. It was simply an Otsutsuki conspiracy.
Or take that villain after the Fourth Great Ninja War who used Talk-no-Jutsu to manipulate Sai and the others.
At first glance, it looked like a conflict between commoners and the nobles and officials, with the villain arguing that "kings and nobles are not born superior."
But in the end, the villain exposed himself and admitted he never had any noble ideals at all.
To put it simply, it was like two people online arguing over sweet tofu pudding versus salty tofu pudding. Kishimoto believed salty tofu pudding represented justice and therefore had to win.
So what would Kishimoto do?
Instead of arguing why salty tofu pudding tasted better, he would simply prove that the person supporting sweet tofu pudding was a spy, a traitor, a walking bounty.
So while Madara was standing here overwhelmed with emotion, and Obito was suffering torture over there—What was Shiromo doing now? What new plan did he have?
The answer was—Infinite Tsukuyomi.
That's right. Shiromo and the others had gone through endless effort and schemes to make people abandon the Infinite Tsukuyomi, only for their current goal to become... Infinite Tsukuyomi again.
It sounded rather ironic.
But this new "Infinite Tsukuyomi" was naturally different.
Or perhaps it could be described another way.
At this moment, in the Land of Snow's film studio, several blockbuster movies were currently being filmed.
One was the sequel to the story about Kaguya Otsutsuki descending from outer space to Earth and fighting against her own people to protect the planet.
The second film was titled: "Lend Me Your Energy!"
There was also a new intellectual property featuring the Giant of Light, Uchiha Hikari. Facing the dark Otsutsuki God, she called upon the entire world to lend her their light, transformed into her shining form, and defeated the enemy.
That's right.
The Infinite Tsukuyomi forcibly absorbed everyone's chakra without their consent, eventually draining people to death. There was no question that this was the method of an evil villain.
As righteous protagonists, however, they should first obtain people's consent before drawing upon their chakra. It should also be sustainable and not drain anyone to death.
At the same time, compensation should also be provided.
That was the difference between heroes and villains.
As for a controllable Infinite Tsukuyomi, it actually was not difficult.
Uchiha Hikari could already use the Yachihoko together with Tsukuyomi to create a virtual game world, allowing her to absorb chakra from across the world while still controlling the process enough to avoid killing people.
Before this, the only problem had been storage.
Such an enormous amount of chakra could not be stored in a human body for long, nor was there any suitable container capable of holding it.
Even using Susanoo as a vessel would cause it to explode instantly.
So the chakra could only be extracted and used immediately.
But now they had an unused Gedo Statue.
The Gedo Statue could completely function as a giant chakra battery.
And once Isshiki was dealt with, they could even turn the Ten-Tails on his side into another Gedo Statue and create Battery Number Two.
As for the old battery once the new one was ready...
Well, obviously they would keep using it normally.
It's not like they were going to put it into some kind of machine or anything.
…
Konoha.
Jiraiya and Sarutobi Hiruzen had returned to the village.
The two rented rooms at a hot spring inn and began their secret discussion.
Watching Jiraiya freely enjoying delicious food and relaxing in the hot springs, Sarutobi Hiruzen felt a bit envious.
Of course, what he envied was not actually those things.
After all, with the sensory technique formula attached to him, he could experience those sensations as well.
The thing he truly envied was something else entirely.
And that very matter was also the key point of their secret meeting this time.
(End of this chapter)