"Hokage. You've come."
Madara finally spoke.
"I've come."
Hiruzen narrowed his eyes as he studied him.
Madara's appearance was extremely strange.
A hood concealed his head.
His eyes seemed shrouded in mist.
His entire face was hidden behind a White Zetsu mask, leaving no identifiable features whatsoever.
"You should not have come."
"And yet I came."
The two exchanged probing remarks.
Once again, Minato couldn't help admiring Hokage-sama from the bottom of his heart.
Getting along smoothly with fellow Konoha shinobi was one thing.
But the Hokage could even converse naturally with someone this bizarre?
Of course, this exchange wasn't meaningless.
The moment Hizashi landed, his Byakugan activated at full power.
He was doing everything possible to see through Madara's disguise.
Unfortunately, White Zetsu's Transformation Technique—especially Tobi's—was extraordinarily similar to Hashirama's Wood Clone Technique.
Even Eternal Mangekyō Madara himself had once failed to see through it and had been ambushed from behind.
'This person's chakra is extremely strange.'
'He possesses some technique that disguises chakra.'
Hizashi silently committed the observation to memory.
Beside him, Fugaku had already activated his three-tomoe Sharingan.
His eyes burned with fighting spirit.
He had completely abandoned the path of becoming a cultured intellectual.
Recently, he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to training, determined to become a true warrior.
"The one who attacked Uchiha Yashiro was you as well, wasn't it?"
Hiruzen gestured for Fugaku and Hizashi to step back while keeping his gaze fixed on Madara.
Madara's heart stirred slightly.
But he admitted it openly.
"That's right. It was me."
"You hide your identity and repeatedly attack Konoha and Konoha's allies."
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"
Hiruzen's voice turned solemn.
"If you believe you have some grievance with Konoha, then say it openly."
"You're a shinobi from the Warring States Era, aren't you?"
"If this is a historical grievance, today's Konoha possesses both the confidence and the magnanimity to resolve it."
"But repeatedly attacking Konoha shinobi and Konoha's brothers is conduct that cannot be forgiven."
"Shinobi who possess the Will of Fire will spare no effort in eliminating enemies who threaten peace."
Although Hiruzen's attitude was firm, he deliberately left room for dialogue.
In his eyes, this mysterious man's actions were incredibly strange.
Was he targeting Konoha?
In a sense, yes.
But when Hiruzen sat down and thought about it carefully, every result had ultimately benefited him immensely.
The Yashiro incident, for example, had prematurely exposed the conflict between the Shinobi Rules and the Will of Fire, allowing Konoha to complete a round of ideological integration with relatively little public turmoil.
It had even further unified the noble factions.
And even the Amegakure incident...
Although Hanzo had been injured, Nagato—the Uzumaki clansman—had been released and returned.
If handled properly, the little resistance Amegakure still harbored toward Konoha would quickly crumble.
Under the pressure of a common external threat, the two villages would rapidly grow closer and integrate!
Of course, all of that could simply be a coincidence.
But based on Hiruzen's understanding of lunatics in the shinobi world, he instinctively chose to leave open the possibility of winning this man over...
After all, up to this point, no one had died because of him.
For a shinobi, with Konoha's current medical capabilities, not dying was practically the same as being unharmed.
Considering the scale of the events that had unfolded so quickly, the price paid so far was almost negligible.
Cruel as it sounded, that was reality.
Madara quietly listened to Hiruzen's words.
Hunt him down?
He didn't care about that.
What mattered was that he had heard something important.
'Eliminate enemies who threaten peace...'
Was he threatening peace?
In Madara's own view, he was the person in the entire shinobi world who loved peace the most!
Everything he was doing was for the sake of ending a thousand years of conflict and breaking the unending cycle of hatred once and for all!
Naturally, that meant he didn't belong among Konoha's enemies.
The two sides merely had a slight misunderstanding.
'Hiruzen really is clever. Even with how thoroughly I've concealed myself, he still deduced that I'm someone from the Warring States Era...'
'And he speaks with culture, unlike Hashirama...'
Madara's eyes flickered as he spoke in a deep voice: "Sarutobi Hiruzen, you've done a passable job as the Third Hokage."
"I called you here to tell you that the peace you've been pursuing is nothing but a fragile illusion. It may endure for a while, but its collapse is inevitable."
"The path you've chosen cannot succeed. A thousand years of shinobi history have already proven it."
"Neither the clan system nor the one-country-one-village system can bring peace to this land."
A small idea suddenly occurred to Madara.
He needed to further obscure his identity.
Although he had recovered the portion of vitality that the Rinnegan had used to modify Nagato, he was still far from his peak condition.
And given his reputation throughout the shinobi world...
Madara wasn't interested in lying to himself about this.
If Hiruzen ever confirmed his true identity, every hidden village would immediately set aside their conflicts and unite against him.
Even Ōnoki, who was currently fighting wars on multiple fronts, would do the same.
In fact, Ōnoki would probably be the first one charging forward, howling for all the villages to unite.
And the others would undoubtedly agree.
After all, whose family didn't have a few elders?
"The one-country-one-village system was a flawed system created by Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara."
"On the surface, their actions seemed aimed at bringing peace to the shinobi world, but in reality they only created even greater bloodshed."
"Rather than deterring one another, shinobi were gathered into even more efficient organizations."
"The efficiency of killing increased."
"War became even more brutal."
Madara lectured Hiruzen, though in truth he was also speaking to his younger self.
"Remember my words well."
"This path cannot succeed."
"Don't waste your talents walking the wrong road..."
Before Madara could finish, Hiruzen suddenly barked a sharp rebuke.
"Madman!"
"I expected someone as confident as you to have something profound to say..."
Hiruzen's expression became extremely stern.
"And yet you've spoken nothing but absurd nonsense!"
Madara froze.
"In the Warring States Era, the land was torn apart by chaos and famine!"
"Shinobi were trapped in endless cycles of vendetta and slaughter. Even children only a few years old were forced onto the battlefield!"
"It was Hashirama-sama and Madara-sama who joined forces to bring an end to that age of turmoil!"
"For the first time, they ended the thousand-year feud between the Senju and Uchiha!"
"They united clans that had spent generations killing one another and forged an alliance!"
"From that day onward, the intensity of warfare throughout the shinobi world dropped dramatically."
"Before any hidden village went to war, they had to consider the balance of power."
"At the very least, large-scale battles only occurred on a scale of decades!"
"Compared to the Warring States Era, the difference is beyond comparison!"
"True, they did not completely eradicate war."
"But it was undeniably a revolutionary step forward."
"Whether it is me or shinobi from the other hidden villages, we should all be grateful that they prevented the entire shinobi world from descending into total chaos."
Hiruzen raised a hand and pointed directly at Madara.
His voice rang out like thunder.
"And you!"
"What have you done besides stand here flapping your gums?"
"You hide your face and theorize from afar."
"You think you've seen through some great truth, yet you've accomplished absolutely nothing."
"I suspect all you've done is sit in your hiding place fantasizing all day long!"
"Someone like you dares criticize Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, the founders of our Konoha?"
"Let me tell you something."
"You are not qualified!"
Hiruzen genuinely was angry.
In his eyes, Madara's argument was laughable.
The Warring States Era had been an age of complete chaos.
Endless territorial conflicts.
Endless slaughter.
An age that threatened to extinguish the last traces of humanity itself.
What possible fault could there be in ending such darkness?
Nearby, Fugaku was listening so intently that he was almost entranced.
Good grief!
So Hokage-sama's respect for the Great Clan Head wasn't merely for show?
He genuinely acknowledged him as one of Konoha's founders—an inseparable part of the village itself...
Meanwhile, Madara was stunned.
Ordinarily, being scolded like this would have sent him into a towering rage and immediately led to a fight.
But was Hiruzen actually insulting him?
The more carefully he listened, the stranger it seemed.
Technically, yes, Hiruzen was criticizing him.
But at the same time, it didn't really feel like criticism.
'Although I already knew this...'
'To have it confirmed that Hiruzen admires my younger self this much...'
Madara's emotions became complicated.
As Senju Tobirama's disciple, Hiruzen was defending him—a supposed outsider—with such conviction.
Affirming his place as Konoha's founder.
Affirming his role in ending the age of chaos.
What more needed to be said?
This kind of attitude could only come from someone who genuinely respected and admired the Madara of that era.
Madara remained silent for a moment before finally calming himself.
He would debate Hiruzen.
Armed with the Infinite Tsukuyomi and his understanding of the shinobi world, Madara was confident that reason was on his side.
"Hmph."
"Then explain this."
"If everything was so wonderful, why did Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama ultimately fight a battle to the death?"
"Konoha has never publicly disclosed the reason."
"But if even one of the founders could no longer believe in the village he helped create, doesn't that alone prove that the system itself was unsustainable?"
Madara let out a cold laugh.
"Uchiha Madara was so naïve that it bordered on stupidity."
"But at least he possessed the instincts of a beast. He could smell the falsehood hidden within this so-called one-country-one-village system and the Will of Fire."
"And yet all of you are drowning in that falsehood."
"Do you not even have the courage to face reality?"
To conceal his identity, Madara was truly sparing no effort.
He kept attacking his former self at every opportunity.
After all, according to the shinobi world's image of him, the Shura of the Shinobi World was not the type to engage in self-criticism.
And it was working.
Even Hiruzen merely assumed that this mysterious figure was probably some veteran from the same era as Hashirama and Madara.
He never considered that the man could actually be connected to either of them.
Madara's death had simply become too deeply ingrained in people's minds.
No one believed Hashirama could have been fooled.
After all, back then Hashirama had nearly fallen out with Tobirama over the matter of Madara's corpse.
Madara's disguise was also exceptionally thorough.
It could only be said that after regaining his drive, Madara's intelligence had once again claimed the high ground.
"Were you someone defeated by Madara-sama in the past?"
Hiruzen let out a cold chuckle.
Ordinarily, there was no way he would refer to Uchiha Madara as "Madara-sama" within the village.
But this was in front of an outsider.
Regardless of the many mistakes Madara had made, he remained one of Konoha's founders—a figure the village could never simply discard.
And Hashirama had stubbornly refused to revoke his status as a Konoha shinobi.
Internal matters and external matters had to be distinguished.
That was Konoha's internal issue.
It had nothing to do with outsiders.
After all, the First Hokage himself had forgiven him.
As a disciple, Hiruzen wasn't really in a position to say much more.
From a legal standpoint, Uchiha Madara was still a legitimate Konoha shinobi.
Registration Number 002.
It just wasn't appropriate to bring that up publicly yet.
For a moment, Madara didn't know what to say.
Defeated by himself?
"You're trying to bring up the battle between Madara-sama and Hashirama-sama at the Valley of the End."
"That battle certainly wasn't pleasant."
"But it was a clash of ideals, not a rejection of the village's existence."
Seeing that Madara remained silent, Hiruzen sneered.
"Even an imperfect order is superior to complete disorder."
Madara frowned.
"So you're saying the village represents order?"
"And that any form of order is better than the Warring States Era?"
To Madara, that sounded like little more than a desperate attempt to cling to life.
Hiruzen laughed softly.
"As long as a system can protect an individual's right to survive, then even if it possesses obvious flaws, it will always hold absolute priority over complete disorder."
"Certainly, problems emerged within Konoha's balance after the village was founded."
"But at that very moment, Madara left his mark on the village through force."
"He made Konoha realize that order must continuously evolve and reform."
"Legitimate demands cannot simply be dismissed by labeling them as attempts to create disorder."
Hiruzen stared directly at Madara.
"Madara-sama and Hashirama-sama complement one another."
"One symbolizes the warning that drives continual improvement."
"The other symbolizes the overall structure of order."
"They stand together at the Valley of the End, supporting one another."
"One is the roots."
"The other is the trunk."
"And both are forever remembered in the hearts of Konoha's shinobi."
"As for dreamers like you..."
"You're probably obsessed with some fantasy of perfect order."
"Always thinking in extremes."
Hiruzen shook his head.
"I suggest you spend more time studying Madara-sama's deeds and writings."
"Even if you were once defeated by him, don't spend your days trying to tarnish the reputation of the Shura of the Shinobi World."
"Instead, try to understand the resolve that drove him to give up everything in order to warn Konoha."
Madara completely lost his composure.
"What exactly are you to Uchiha Madara?"
"Aren't you Hashirama's disciple?"
"Why are you speaking on his behalf?"
"Wasn't his attack on Konoha an act of rebellion?"
"Your perspective is even narrower than I imagined."
Hiruzen looked at Madara with surprise.
"If weaker shinobi fail to understand, I don't blame them."
"But someone with your level of strength should understand."
"Madara never believed he could defeat Hashirama-sama."
"The outcome between them had already been decided the moment the Senju and Uchiha formed their alliance."
"And besides..."
"What kind of rebellion involves challenging someone to a one-on-one duel?"
"If it truly had been rebellion, then why didn't Hashirama-sama revoke Madara's status as a Konoha shinobi?"
"If you want to criticize Madara-sama and Hashirama-sama, I'd advise you to first understand history."
"Understand Konoha's history."
"Understand the core of the ideological conflict behind it."
"Thinking you've seen through everything while having nothing meaningful to say is rather laughable."
Madara said nothing.
But Tobi, attached to his body, could feel Madara-sama's temperature rising rapidly.
In short—
He was turning red.