"..."
Senju Tobirama felt miserable.
He never imagined that, in a moment when his chakra had been drained dry and he was unable to resist, the person who would humiliate him the most wouldn't be Uchiha Madara—but Uzumaki Naruto!
This was his elder brother's reincarnated successor in spirit, a descendant of Uzumaki's clan, the kid who learned his Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu, the future Seventh Hokage…
Just a moment ago, he and Madara—two people stripped of their strength—were locked in a tense battle of wits.
In the end, Madara got humiliated by Sasuke. And Tobirama got humiliated by Naruto.
At that moment, Tobirama felt just like the masked man once had.
Back then, the masked man hated the fact that he possessed the Sharingan, because it let him see every incoming detail with perfect clarity.
Tobirama now felt the exact same pain.
Even without chakra, the reaction speed and instincts he honed through Flying Thunder God were still far too sharp.
If it had been anyone else, Sasuke's sudden Amenotejikara swap—basically the speed of a Flying Thunder God chain—would have been impossible to follow.
By the time they realized what happened, Naruto would already have finished whatever he was doing.
And since Tobirama was in an Edo Tensei body, he normally wouldn't be able to feel any of it anyway.
But Tobirama wasn't like other people.
The instant Naruto was swapped over, Tobirama noticed.
His eyes shifted immediately.
And because of his absurdly keen awareness, he caught the whole ridiculous sequence from beginning to end!
It was hopeless.
Tobirama closed his eyes.
First, because he didn't want to face reality for the moment.
Second, because if he didn't close them now, some very unpleasant mess was going to reach them.
As for Naruto—
He had been in midair, happily shouting grand nonsense to himself and feeling like he was soaring free, when suddenly the world lurched and he dropped right back onto the bed.
The abrupt shift startled him badly. He landed. And so did everything else.
That was how Tobirama ended up looking even worse than before.
"…I'm back here again?"
Naruto looked around blankly.
Then he looked down at himself. Once again, he couldn't help marveling at how convenient girls' skirts were.
As he glanced downward, the corner of his eye caught the motionless Tobirama on the floor.
"Huh? Isn't that the Second Hokage? It's only been a few days—why does he smell so weird now?" Naruto pinched his nose mid-sentence.
Tobirama, being an Edo Tensei body, had no sense of smell and couldn't detect anything.
But Naruto was very much alive.
If he didn't pay attention, it was fine.
But once he leaned closer and noticed it, a strange sour odor hit him immediately.
It wasn't anything especially mysterious—just the smell of old milk.
Anyone who ever had school milk delivered should know that milk could smell a bit odd even when still drinkable.
If it sat around too long, it smelled even worse.
Naruto was catching exactly that scent now. He carefully stepped over Tobirama's "corpse."
As for being abruptly dragged back here in the middle of doing something ridiculous in midair, Naruto felt no embarrassment whatsoever.
'This is the illusion world. Why would I be embarrassed?'
At first, after being suddenly transported back, Naruto thought Sasuke might have finally grown a conscience and released the genjutsu.
But after looking around the room, he quickly dismissed that.
The chalk-white Second Hokage was sprawled on the floor.
The house they had been staying in was half wrecked, and even the roof was gone.
And there was still a giant stone sphere floating in the sky.
If this wasn't the genjutsu world, then what was?
"Does Sasuke have a problem or something? Why'd he send me back here again? Now I've got to go find those four guys and head back to Konoha all over again." Naruto grumbled under his breath.
In his eyes, Sasuke simply reset the illusion, which was why he returned to the original location.
"Sasuke! Either let me out, or stop sending me back here! Can't you just let me enjoy myself for once?!"
Before leaving, Naruto pointed angrily at the sky and shouted for a while.
To Tobirama, those words all sounded perfectly normal.
Just Naruto reacting to Sasuke's use of Amenotejikara.
Not long after Naruto left, Sasuke—who swapped places with Naruto and appeared in the sky—activated Susanoo, descended slowly, and started thinking about how to return.
Because Sasuke only just awakened the Rinnegan, and because it came prematurely, his proficiency was nowhere near that of the future Sasuke who was once guided by Makoto.
At present, Sasuke only mastered swapping his own body with an object.
He still couldn't do the more advanced versions: swapping one object with another while staying in place himself, or even swapping an object with empty space.
So if he wanted to return now, he had to swap his body with something back there.
But after only a brief rest and then immediately using ocular power again, Sasuke still felt weak.
His current 'Heavenly fox' vision could only lock onto one person, and he could only see that person, not the environment around them clearly.
That alone made him give up on targeting Naruto.
After all, he couldn't very well aim at Naruto and accidentally swap with Naruto again.
So Sasuke chose the other person still beside Naruto—the Second Hokage.
Only one chance.
'Heavenly fox, activate.'
What appeared in Sasuke's vision was still the Second Hokage lying face-down in the same position as before.
So Tobirama was still pinned there, unable to move because his chakra was being drained by the Uchiha Granny.
Sasuke couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic.
Poor Uchiha Granny—she had to leave a mark just to absorb chakra, while he, now that he had the Rinnegan, could do it whenever he wanted.
That was the confidence Naruto's cells gave him!
"Oh. Right."
Just as Sasuke was about to swap places with Tobirama, another thought occurred to him.
If the Second Hokage was left here out in the wild like this, what if some beast—like a bear, a dog, or a tiger—came along and started bothering him?
Sasuke, after all, was a very humane person.
He also thought things through very carefully. So he decided to test an idea.
'Amenotejikara—partial area exchange.'
Sasuke knew that the Kamui in Kakashi's eye had the effect of a space-time ninjutsu and was terrifyingly powerful.
It could twist space and bypass all defenses to deal damage.
It could also suck in even an exploding septic pit whole. It was both attack and defense in one.
What Sasuke lacked right now was offense.
For defense, he could use Heavenly fox and Void Sight to gather information, use Amenotejikara to evade, and Susanoo to protect himself.
All that was covered.
But for direct attack, he still had to rely on Susanoo's raw physical force, plus ordinary Lightning Release and Fire Release.
So could he also achieve something like Kakashi's space-rending effect?
Sasuke wanted to try.
The Second Hokage's Edo Tensei body was a perfect test subject.
First, since it was an Edo Tensei body, he didn't need to worry about injury or death.
That alone made it ideal.
Second, Edo Tensei could be treated as a single whole, but also not necessarily as one.
The rules were more flexible.
Meaning: Tobirama's body and his clothing might or might not count as the same target, depending on how the technique interpreted them.