Madara remembered that Izuna had always handled the Uchiha Clan's negotiations over mission fees and the collection of payments.
All Madara had needed to do was stand beside him and release enough killing intent to lend him support. Of course, Izuna was no weakling. Madara's presence merely ensured that no one mistook him for an easy target.
Hashirama, however, was actively getting in the way while they discussed payment and mission fees. If a clan member had dared to behave like this during the Warring States Period, Izuna would have been furious enough to skin them three times over once they returned.
Tobirama did not know what Madara was thinking, but as Izuna's sworn enemy, how could he not know how important Izuna's duties had been as the Uchiha Clan's second-in-command?
Having someone else rein in his foolish older brother was truly...
So satisfying!
Izuna suddenly did not seem quite so detestable. Tobirama even thought he was fairly good-looking. Still, those were his only two good qualities: he looked decent, and he helped keep Tobirama's foolish older brother under control. There could not be any more than that.
Aino realized that they were right and quickly apologized for her rash request.
Kaguya remained silent.
She placed a hand over her lower abdomen. The news that Isshiki was still alive had deeply unsettled her. She even regretted not eating the Chakra Fruit earlier, which would have ensured she possessed enough strength to face Isshiki if that day ever came.
But now, the children inside her had absorbed most of her power. If Isshiki chose this moment to attack, there was almost nothing she could do to stop him.
As that thought crossed her mind, Kaguya unconsciously circulated her chakra and frowned in pain.
Naruto happened to notice her expression and remembered a particular photograph he had seen in his family album back in his altered world.
It showed Kushina while she was pregnant, with Minato Namikaze leaning against her belly and listening to the baby inside.
For a moment, the image of the long-haired Kaguya overlapped with that of the equally long-haired Kushina.
Naruto would not go as far as the First Hokage and shout that he would do it for free, but he still sincerely wanted to help Kaguya.
Perhaps the mission scroll sensed his feelings, because a new mission silently appeared upon it.
[Mission Rank: S-rank]
[Mission Objective: Prevent Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki and Hamura Ōtsutsuki from sealing Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.]
The moment Naruto, Minato Namikaze, and the others saw the mission, they all had the same thought. They could not let Kaguya or her maidservant Aino see it.
Fortunately, Kaguya was not particularly curious, and Aino certainly did not dare overstep her bounds by running over to peek at their mission scroll.
Noticing the suddenly grave atmosphere among them, Aino nervously asked on Kaguya-sama's behalf, "Has something serious happened?"
"Well..." Hamura Ōtsutsuki found himself at a loss.
For one thing, he did not know how to tell his mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, about the future he had experienced.
For another, if circumstances ultimately reached the point where his mother attempted to destroy the entire world to cultivate the God Tree, then he and his older brother would most likely still end up sealing her.
The others, however, believed the greatest difficulty with the mission was that Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki and Hamura Ōtsutsuki had not even been born yet. They were still inside Kaguya's womb.
They did not know exactly when the two brothers had sealed Kaguya, but they must have been around twenty years old at the very least.
Were they supposed to remain in this world for more than twenty years, waiting until the brothers tried to seal Kaguya?
Would they have to watch Kaguya give birth, help her raise her children, and teach the two boys whenever they had nothing else to do?
The moment Naruto imagined that he and Sasuke might be in their thirties before they could finish the mission and return home, he went limp and listless like a wilted bean sprout.
"No way, dattebayo! I can't accept Grandpa Six Paths calling me Uncle Naruto someday!"
Naruto was not the only one. Even the Nine-Tails inside him could not accept such a scenario.
But on second thought, the image of the Six Paths Old Man as a child gazing up at him with respectful eyes was actually rather appealing.
Then there were Indra and Ashura. Just imagining it...
Ashura was already worried that his older brother might bully their father when he was still young.
Naturally, Hashirama, Madara, Izuna, Tobirama, and the others had no desire to squander their lives here either. The mission scroll had revived them all in their twenties, not so they could waste the next twenty years in this world.
Just as no one had any idea how they were supposed to complete the mission, Minato Namikaze keenly detected a disturbance in space-time chakra.
They had not even completed the A-rank mission yet, but they were already about to travel through time again?!
Kannabi Bridge Minato immediately told everyone to prepare themselves. To avoid being separated during the transfer, they needed to stand together and hold on to one another wherever possible.
He then gave Kaguya a brief explanation, telling her that they would most likely return soon as long as nothing unexpected happened.
Then they vanished from the spot.
...
As Minato Namikaze had instructed, the moment they appeared in another era, Naruto held tightly to Sasuke and Sakura. Since he had already reconciled with Kurama, he could also use the Nine-Tails' red chakra to wrap around all of them and hold them together.
Adult Kakashi placed a hand on Naruto and brought all three of his students within his protection.
Likewise, young Obito held tightly to young Kakashi and Rin, using Wood Release to shield them completely.
Adult Obito and Minato Namikaze protected both groups together.
Madara, Izuna, Hashirama, Tobirama, Indra, Ashura, and Hamura were all powerful enough to protect themselves. Even so, Madara, Hashirama, and Indra instinctively moved to shield their younger brothers.
As they fell from the sky, Wood Release wooden figures and Susanoo appeared one after another to catch them.
Hmm...
There were three Susanoo alone.
Madara's, Obito and Kakashi's, and Indra's.
Yet before they could take in the devastated landscape of this era, their attention was seized by the enormous Susanoo beside them.
It was gigantic beyond belief!
None of them had ever seen a Susanoo like it before.
Its color was even paler than the cyan Susanoo used by Obito and Kakashi.
And its size...
Even if Hashirama's Wood Release wooden figure and the Susanoo belonging to Madara, Obito and Kakashi, and Indra were stacked together, they might still fail to match that colossal Susanoo!
Compared to the pale blue giant, any one of their Susanoo, or even Hashirama's Wood Release wooden figure, looked no larger than a swaddled infant!
Madara Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan widened. "Who is that?!"
Even Indra was dumbfounded.
Who could possibly possess such an enormous Susanoo?
"Older Brother!"
At Hamura Ōtsutsuki's shout, everyone instinctively looked toward him.
They then focused on the back of the gigantic pale blue Susanoo and finally noticed two young men in white robes standing upon its forehead. One of them had long silver-blue hair and looked exactly like the Hamura Ōtsutsuki beside them.
At the same time, Hagoromo and Hamura, who were inside the enormous Susanoo, also noticed the group behind them.
Hagoromo glanced into the distance and exchanged a look with his younger brother. He then dismissed his Susanoo and descended before Indra, Madara Uchiha, and the others.
The Nine-Tails inside Naruto had already begun slapping its tails excitedly at the sight of the Rikudō Sennin again. However, unwilling to admit how thrilled it was, it deliberately snorted as though it did not care in the slightest.
The young Rikudō Sennin looked over the group. "Who are you people?!"
His gaze quickly settled on the Hamura Ōtsutsuki who had arrived from the mission scroll's world alongside Naruto and the others.
"Ha-Hamura?!"
The Rikudō Sennin looked at the younger brother beside him, then at the Hamura Ōtsutsuki standing across from him. Even he was left speechless.
Naturally, the Hamura Ōtsutsuki beside him was equally shocked. He activated his Byakugan and carefully examined his counterpart several times before speaking.
"Even his chakra is exactly the same..."
Yet he knew better than anyone that he himself was Hamura Ōtsutsuki.
Hamura Ōtsutsuki from the mission scroll's world said, "It's a long story. We can discuss it later."
Having lived through these events before, he looked across the devastated earth and then up at the star-filled sky. When he failed to see the moon, he immediately understood.
Unless something unexpected had happened, this was the very period when he and his older brother had fought their mother for several months.
"Where are Mother and the God Tree?" he asked his older brother from this era.
The young Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki took a moment to process the situation. "Hamura, are you a version of Hamura from the future or another parallel world?!"
"As expected of you, Older Brother. You guessed it immediately."
"A version of me from the future or another parallel world?" Hamura Ōtsutsuki of this era visibly froze.
He then looked at the people surrounding his other self. Several of them possessed the same eyes as his older brother.
"Who are these people...?"
"They are Older Brother's descendants," Hamura said before introducing Indra and Ashura. "These are your future eldest and second sons, Indra and Ashura."
...
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