Shinju's finger slid across the light screen.
The glowing projection above the sand table shifted with it.
Konoha appeared within the light.
Hashirama stared at the Konoha before him, the sight making him feel both familiar and unfamiliar.
Before, even though he had once been summoned by Orochimaru through Edo Tensei, it had been limited to that battle—he'd never truly seen how Konoha had developed.
A semi-transparent image of a child, face brimming with joy, "passed" right through Hashirama's body, running toward the embrace of a woman across the street.
There was only pure innocence in the child's smile.
At the street corner, several shinobi wearing Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure forehead protectors were gathered around a steaming box of takoyaki, sharing it—one for you, one for me.
With their arms slung over each other's shoulders, they argued heatedly about the pros and cons of some new type of ninja tool.
Not far away, at the medical department, injured people were constantly being carried in, and others walked back out.
The wounds on their bodies looked more like accidents from construction work or missions—rather than the deadly results of shinobi killing shinobi.
Hashirama saw how steady and peaceful everyone's faces were.
Wasn't this the very purpose of why he built Konoha?
To keep children away from the battlefield.
To erase barriers between villages.
To let everyone live with dignity.
This was a thousand times, ten thousand times better than the world he had imagined.
A scorching liquid overflowed from his eye sockets and ran down his cheeks.
"This… is the world I dreamed of… No—this is even better than what I dreamed of…"
Madara didn't say a word the entire time.
His eyes didn't linger for even a moment on the happiness of those ordinary villagers.
The scene on the sand table abruptly switched, locking onto a grand, imposing building.
At the very top of the structure hung a massive, eye-catching emblem—
The Uchiha clan's gunbai crest.
On the front gate, five words stood out clearly:
Konoha Police Force.
Squads of Uchiha clan members in uniform filed out from the entrance.
Their steps were orderly.
When villagers on the street saw the patrols, they would stop and smile, greeting them first.
When children playing at the roadside saw them, they looked up with admiration.
They had completely cast off suspicion and become the protectors of this village—symbols of order itself.
To create a dream where Uchiha would never be humiliated again, Madara had launched the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
For that goal, he had betrayed his closest friend and stood against the entire shinobi world.
He had believed with absolute certainty that only absolute power could bring true peace—that only conquest could end all disputes.
But the image before him was like an invisible knife, stabbing straight into the core of the faith he had spent his entire life building.
The world he had gambled everything to pursue—a world where Uchiha were respected by all—
It had been realized just like this.
No war.
No genjutsu.
No sacrifice.
All it needed was…
Trust?
He watched an officer lift a little girl into his arms, watched her family run over with grateful faces—
That scene was far too blinding.
The answer he had hunted his entire life for…
Someone else had written it out with the simplest method imaginable.
And he—
He had been a madman stubbornly walking along the edge of a cliff, yet thinking he was climbing toward the summit.
Madara closed his eyes, not daring to look any longer.
True peace wasn't using an illusion to manufacture a false dream.
It was being accepted from the heart.
It was being genuinely trusted.
It was finding one's place and value in this world.
This brat…
He had done it.
He had done what he and Hashirama—praised as the pinnacle of the shinobi world—had never managed to do, even after exhausting their entire lives.
"Hashirama… we were both wrong."
"True peace isn't achieved by conquering with power—it's created through wisdom. This brat did what we couldn't."
They had fought for a lifetime, struggled for a lifetime, and only after death did they finally see clearly that both of their paths… had been detours leading to hell.
From start to finish, Shinju didn't interrupt them.
"Hashirama-sama, Madara-sama… welcome to the new era."
"The old conflicts have ended. But a new war is about to begin."
Before his words even finished, the Konoha scene on the sand table vanished.
In its place appeared a boundless, deep star map of the cosmos.
Countless points of light glittered within it, representing different planets and worlds.
Then, one terrifying projection after another appeared over the star map.
Pale skin.
Horns bursting out from the forehead.
The image of Otsutsuki Kaguya emerged.
The image of Otsutsuki Momoshiki emerged.
…
These memories came from Black Zetsu, forcibly poured into their minds.
Planet after planet was drained of energy, becoming cold, dead stars.
Hashirama and Madara's understanding of reality was completely overturned.
Their lifelong conflict had been confined to this land called the shinobi world.
They had once believed the Sage of Six Paths was the pinnacle of power, and the tailed beasts were the ultimate weapons of war.
Reality shattered their beliefs.
Before the vast starry sky, the power they took such pride in was laughably small.
The shinobi world's thousand years of war, in the eyes of those visitors from beyond the heavens, was nothing more than insects fighting in a nursery.
All sacrifice and all ideals suddenly seemed meaningless.
"I need your strength," Shinju said.
"Your strength should not be used for internal strife. It should be used to protect this world."
A blueprint for a gigantic cannon unfolded.
The purpose behind building this cannon was to pierce the moon—because there was a potential enemy on the moon.
"An anti-Otsutsuki weapon," Shinju gave the answer, "jointly developed by the Second Hokage, Tobirama, and Orochimaru."
Hashirama was still thinking about how his younger brother—who was obsessed with forbidden jutsu and obsessed with reality and rules—had actually been conducting research of this level in secret.
Madara's Rinnegan spun rapidly, trying to parse the structure on the blueprint.
No good. He still couldn't see through it.
He had always thought he was walking at the very front of the era.
But judging from everything he had just seen, it was truly the younger generation pushing aside the old.
"I need you," Shinju said solemnly. "To become this world's shield against the enemies from beyond… and the spear that strikes back at invaders."
The old battlefield had ended with their deaths.
A new battlefield now spread out before them.
Hashirama looked at Madara. Madara also looked at Hashirama.
In the eyes of these two lifelong enemies entangled for an entire lifetime, they saw the same thing.
"We can cooperate," they said at the same time.
"The two gods return to their posts. Now, your tasks will be assigned."
Shinju's will locked onto Hashirama.
"Hashirama-sama, your Wood Release represents life and creation. I need you to travel the shinobi world and use your power to transform the land. Create farmland that will never wither—fields that can feed everyone preparing for war."
"This is the first step of war: infrastructure."
Then, he turned toward Madara.
"Madara-sama, your battle experience and strength are unmatched. The Allied Shinobi Forces have taken shape, but they are still a pile of loose sand."
"I appoint you as the coalition's Chief Instructor. Use your methods to temper them into warriors capable of fighting the Otsutsuki."
Madara had no interest in teaching the weak.
But Shinju's request was different.
What he needed weren't ordinary shinobi—
He needed demons who could slaughter "gods."
To take a group of talented rough gems and forge them into blood-drinking weapons…
That was exactly what Madara excelled at.
A shinobi-world-wide "infrastructure frenzy," personally launched by the God of Shinobi, was about to sweep across the land.
And the "everyone prepares for war" plan spanning every village…
Would also begin, under the bloody supervision of Uchiha's Asura.
(End of Chapter)
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