Chapter 298: Kakuzu: Impersonating Madara?
"I have grown weak and soft?"
"I don't think I'm the one who's grown soft, Koharu. It seems that after gaining control over Root, you are the one who has lost sight of who you are!"
"I am genuinely starting to regret it now...regret why I didn't directly disband the Root organization right after Danzō died!"
Sarutobi Hiruzen glared at Koharu Utatane, his tone sharpening with unfiltered hostility. I've grown weak?
Clearly, you, Koharu Utatane, are the one who has grown entirely too bold!
With the unstoppable momentum of the village shifting against us, even I, the Hokage, am being forced to step down. Yet you, a mere village counselor, not only recruited outside mercenaries to assassinate Uchiha Ikeizumi, but now you have the nerve to stand here and call me weak!
Root... you have truly turned my closest comrades from men into monsters!
"Hiruzen, you will live to regret this!"
Koharu stared deeply at Sarutobi Hiruzen, finally gaining a shred of understanding toward what Shimura Danzō must have felt all those years.
Your seat as Hokage is about to be stripped away, yet you sit there completely indifferent. I step up to handle the filthy work to protect your legacy, and now you have the audacity to tell me I've lost sight of who I am?
"Whether I will regret it is unknown, but right now, you are going back to the detention cell!"
Hiruzen didn't care to waste another breath on Koharu. He was handing over his title anyway, and Koharu belonged back behind bars. As for Root...if it was truly salvaged into this kind of mess, it might as well be permanently liquidated!
Koharu didn't offer another word, silently turning on her heel and leaving the Hokage Residence.
Though she threw those sharp barbs about Hiruzen growing soft, deep down, she was genuinely terrified. After all, a monster like Uchiha Ikeizumi held absolutely zero reverence for status or seniority; if he ever uncovered that she was the one who contracted Akatsuki to slaughter him, he would ruthlessly execute her without a second thought.
Left alone in his office, Sarutobi Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, puffing on his pipe with an expression steeped in profound melancholy.
And Hiruzen wasn't the only one drowning in frustration; the Akatsuki organization was similarly miserable.
When the members of Akatsuki reassembled deep within the Land of Rain, taking in one another's battered, ash-covered, and disheveled appearances, a deathly, suffocating silence descended over the entire base...until a certain uninvited guest finally made a resentful entrance.
"Why did you suddenly stop the assault?"
"I was right on the verge of securing Uchiha Izumi and that ninja cat! The absolute moment I captured them, we could have forced Uchiha Ikeizumi to surrender unconditionally!"
Uchiha Obito glared fiercely at the Deva Path Pain, who still maintained his cold, aloof demeanor atop his high pedestal.
He didn't understand, he couldn't comprehend...why, when the tactical gears were spinning perfectly, did Pain turn tail and flee without uttering a single warning?
It was a miracle that he, Obito, possessed exceptional survival skills. If he lacked his space-time dōjutsu, wouldn't Pain's abrupt retreat have been a textbook case of abandoning a teammate to die?
"Hidan is dead."
Pain stared back at the late-arriving Obito, offering a flat, patient explanation.
Regardless of whether this masked entity was truly Obito or Madara, at the very least, he hadn't slacked off during this deployment; he had actively attempted to secure Uchiha Izumi and that ninja cat, Kojirō, to turn the tide. Setting aside whether he succeeded, having the initiative to salvage the mission was a positive trait.
"Who the hell is Hidan?" Obito muttered, thoroughly bewildered.
When he slipped back into the base just now, he had deliberately counted heads. Akatsuki's core roster didn't look like it was missing a single person.
"A recruit who joined the organization not too long ago. Like Kakuzu, he possessed an immortal body. I originally intended for Kakuzu and him to form the Immortal Combo."
The Deva Path Pain displayed an unusual amount of patience today...though it was highly probable that because everyone had just suffered a crushing defeat, he felt the need to offer a bit of administrative reassurance.
"An immortal body... that can still die?"
"What kind of garbage immortality is that supposed to be?"
"Our Akatsuki organization isn't some shelter where any random stray cat or dog can just walk through the front door!"
Obito let out a mocking, disdainful laugh. An "immortal" asset getting permanently written off during Akatsuki's very first major deployment? He found the sheer irony of it hysterical.
"Not only is Hidan dead, but four of my Six Paths have been completely destroyed as well," the Deva Path Pain stated coldly.
It wasn't that he lacked the resolve to fight to the bitter end; rather, Uchiha Ikeizumi's combat output had crossed into an entirely terrifying threshold. This was simply a failure dictated by an overwhelming disparity in force, not a lack of tactical effort!
"We are all well aware of Uchiha Ikeizumi's monstrous strength. But what about you?"
"Aren't you supposed to be Uchiha Madara?"
"The legendary 'Ghost of the Uchiha,' the terror of the warring states...and you couldn't even handle a single ninja beast and a teenage Uchiha brat?"
While Pain maintained his composure, Konan had clearly exhausted the absolute baseline of her patience today.
You're a blatant fraud; we all know it. Even if his tactical intentions were technically helpful, he hadn't contributed a single tangible result to the board.
And with this pathetic level of performance, he still had the audacity to call himself the world-ending Uchiha Madara? If the actual Uchiha Madara ever discovered he took this long to fail a capture mission against a mere household cat, he would have committed suicide out of sheer, unadulterated shame on the spot...rather than storming back into the base to aggressively interrogate everyone else!
"I..."
Obito was left entirely tongue-tied by Konan's vitriolic rebuke. He opened his mouth to fire back a retort, but trying to argue that the legendary Uchiha Madara would get stalled out by a ninja cat for several minutes did, in fact, sound entirely indefensible.
On the other side of the chamber, Sasori and Kakuzu exchanged a brief, heavily weighted look, both discerning the profound shock reflecting in the other's eyes.
They had assumed that as veteran mainstays of Akatsuki, they were intimately acquainted with the organization's deepest secrets. Yet this marked the absolute first time they were learning that alongside their enigmatic, god-like leader, there was apparently an asset claiming to be Uchiha Madara lurking in the shadows?
Setting aside whatever Sasori was calculating, Kakuzu was currently harboring an immense wave of skepticism toward this masked clown.
For no other reason than the fact that he, Kakuzu, had actually traded blows with Senju Hashirama in his youth. Since Uchiha Madara was a titan who stood as Hashirama's absolute equal, how could his strength possibly degrade to the point where he couldn't even suppress a domestic animal?
"He's likely just some third-rate trash impersonating Uchiha Madara...and a brat from the Uchiha line at that," Kakuzu added smoothly, providing a venomous assist to Konan's verbal assault.
When facing Uchiha Ikeizumi, Kakuzu had been forced to watch helplessly from the absolute margins of the field. To watch a battle collapse so disastrously under those conditions had left a massive, roaring fire of irritation burning in his chest, and it just so happened that this masked fool claiming to be Madara offered the perfect punching bag to vent some of his boiling frustration!
"Enough. Obsessing over his identity yields no practical value; do not lose sight of our core objective."
"However, since you claim the mantle of Uchiha Madara, it stands to reason you maintain a few internal channels deep within Konoha?"
"This battle exposed several structural limitations within Konan's current arsenal. I recall that Konoha's Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, developed a specific restricted kinjutsu known as the Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags. Konan requires that scroll to elevate her combat threshold."
Nagato truly didn't care about Obito's true identity. He possessed absolute confidence that if the need ever arose, this masked phantom could never hope to outrun the wrath of his Rinnegan.
"The Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags?"
"I will secure it for you," Obito agreed with a curt nod.
He had no desire to remain in the chamber and continue enduring a hostile post-mortem analysis of their failed deployment. Akatsuki was entirely a dictatorship run by the Deva Path Pain; the moment he voiced a tactical opinion, the entire room united to shut him down. This was pure, unadulterated ostracization.
However, a secondary realization crystallized in Obito's mind: it was high time he planted one of his own loyal agents directly into the core roster of Akatsuki to disrupt this unified front.
While the leadership of Akatsuki was busy breaking down the analytical data of their defeat, Uchiha Ikeizumi...currently traveling back...suddenly detected a bizarre, profound shift occurring deep within his own biology.
Following Hidan's definitive demise, a massive surge of pure, raw Yang Release energy began to swell and overflow within his physical form. The sensation was so distinct that Ikeizumi was suddenly hit with an underlying, instinctual premonition: Even if an enemy were to drive a blade clean through my heart right now, I would easily continue to breathe and live.
.......
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